The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C+
I must admit that I’m not a huge fan of Tom and Jerry cartoons. While I grew up with the old Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera cartoons, and literally have a Bugs Bunny cartoon on the tv as I write this, the cat and mouse pair never did much for me. I think that the relative silence and lack of dialogue has something to do with it. I sleep with the tv on because I need background noise and I avoid leaving the cartoon channel on because the silence of Tom and Jerry will actually wake me up. Anyway, although I’m not a huge fan, I appreciate the artwork and understand why people (especially those without odd sleeping issues) would enjoy them. Despite my relative indifference to the characters, I still feared the worst with this movie because….how to I put this diplomatically…..most modern updates are fucking garbage. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t hate this. It’s nothing special and I probably won’t watch it again, but it isn’t the dumpster fire that I expected and fans of these characters could get a few chuckles out of it.
The biggest issue is that the plot doesn’t really revolve around the title characters. This is somewhat understandable given the narrative limitations of a cat and mouse kicking the shit out of each other, but very little thought went into this setup. Chloe Grace Moretz plays Kayla, who uses a fake resume to get a job at a fancy hotel in New York that is hosting a celebrity wedding. In the midst of avoiding her boss (played by Michael Pena) and planning this wedding, Tom and Jerry occasionally show up and chase each other. As for plot, that’s about all, folks. This very much feels like a throwback to that period in the 90s when it was popular to make films out of old tv shows and cartoons (The Addams Family, The Flintstones, even the original Tom and Jerry movie from 1992), but nobody could ever figure out a decent way to stretch the story to 90 minutes. People often quote or reference The Addams Family movies, but people rarely ever mention (or even remember) the plots in those things and they are probably the best examples of such an adaptation.
On the plus side, when Tom and Jerry actually show up, they are quite good. The animation is pretty damn good and looks like the old cartoons (I suspect that computer animation was used, but they look enough like the hand-drawn classics) and Tom and Jerry actually act like Tom and Jerry. I feared that their relationship would be stripped of all animosity and violence for the sake of modern audiences (that is, pussies), but their classic cartoon violence remains largely intact. The best bits of the film occur when the human characters disappear and Tom and Jerry are left to do what they do best: chase and kick the crap out of each other. I got a few laughs out of it and the kids in theater (of which there were many) really seemed to get a kick out of it.
The problem is whenever Tom and Jerry aren’t on screen. As I mentioned, I realize the difficulty of writing a 90-minute script about a cat and mouse chasing each other. The 1992 movie had the same problem and this presents a legitimate screenwriting challenge. However, I really, really don’t give a shit about the characters in this movie. Moretz and Pena do a perfectly fine job and couldn’t do much better with the material, but the stakes could not possibly be lower in this story. I don’t care about celebrity weddings in real life and I certainly don’t give a shit about a fake celebrity wedding in a Tom and Jerry movie. Will they find the missing wedding ring? Will the elephants ruin the wedding? Will Tom and Jerry ever come back on screen to wake me from this coma of indifference? That last question is the only one that you will actually ponder during the film. There is also little humor in the film for adults, aside from a couple of random references to Batman (1989) and The Warriors
I really can’t be too hard on this thing. Tom and Jerry is a decent kids movie that does an acceptable enough job of stretching a thin concept far beyond its ideal running time. The bits with the title characters will please fans just enough to keep them awake and kids will enjoy it. Well, I don’t know shit about kids, but the kids in my theater seemed to have a good time.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_%26_Jerry_(2021_film)#/media/File:Tom_&Jerry(Official_2021_Film_Poster).png
