MORE THAN A 'LITTLE' PEEVED WITH 'STUART 2'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

THE FIRST TIME around, Stuart Little raced boats and made a friend out of a sinister cat. Now the cat's an ally ... sort of. In 70 wafer-thin minutes of ``Stuart Little 2,'' our mighty mouse flies planes (twice), plays soccer (sort of) and has time for his first interspecies crush. There's intrigue. There's romance. There's ... no compelling reason to see this bit-of-piffle film. Well, maybe there's one.

I give you 10 things I hate about ``Stuart Little 2'' ... and one thing I loved.

1. I hate the person who decided that Geena Davis should be playing infant-cuddling, perky matron roles. And I hate that Davis took that person's advice.

2. I hate that Hugh Laurie, a smart actor who immortalized Bertie Wooster for British TV, is playing a nerdy father who spouts TV dad platitudes like ``Always look for a silver lining,'' a doofus who greets his family with the phrase ``Little hey, Little ho! Little high, Little low!''

3. I hate the phrase ``Little hey, Little ho ...''

4. I hate that a disease has all but guaranteed that a wonderful physical actor like Michael J. Fox (remember ``Back to the Future''?) can now only get into on-screen mayhem via a computer generated mouse that uses his voice.

5. I hate every overused crestfallen expression of Fox's, er, Stuart's twitchy little white rodent face.

6. I hate that over the course of two ``Stuart Little'' films, none of four credited screenwriters has bothered to explain why all animals have the ability to talk, but some get dressed up in human clothes and sent to school (Stuart Little) while others (Snowbell the cat) use litter boxes. Evolution? Language barrier? Maybe there's a hamster out there who can tell me what I'm missing.

7. I hate Mona May's orange-and-yellow-dominated costume scheme. Who knew ``The Brady Bunch'' lived in New York?

8. I hate the by-the-numbers predictability of the Margalo the scam artist bird subplot. She's Stuart's new friend, you see, but she's got a secret ...

9. I hate listening to Melanie Griffith's voice (she's Margalo) coming out of anything other than Melanie Griffith.

10. I hate the fact that the late E.B. White, who with ``Stuart Little'' created a decidedly ofeat children's story, still has his name attached to this nonsense.

There is, however, one thing and one thing only that I love about ``Stuart Little 2.''

I love the diva-ish, unsentimental, thoroughly bitchy voice work that Nathan Lane gives to Snowbell. I love lines like ``Hairballs ... and yet we continue to lick ourselves'' which only Lane gets to deliver. I love that someone had the good sense to make the entire cast of ``Stuart Little 2'' Nathan Lane's straight man.

And if there's - God help us - another sequel in this franchise, I hope it carries the title ``The Adventures of Snowbell.''

STUART LITTLE 2 - One and one half stars

(rated PG: brief mild language)

Starring: Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Jonathan Lipnicki, with the voices of Michael J. Fox, Melanie Griffith, Nathan Lane and James Woods.

Director: Rob Minkoff.

Running time: 1 hr. 18 min.

Playing: Wide release.