Tom & Jerry (2021) - Review

 

Say bye-bye to Bugs Bunny, forget Fudd, and sayonara to Sylvester, for a large chunk of kids, the Looney Tunes pale in comparison to the marvelous misadventures of Thomas D. Cat and Jerome A. Mouse. This pair have been fighting for decades and their routine of cartoonish encounters has found a sweet spot for those who prefer their ridiculous slapstick to the pop-culture references and musical numbers of the Tunes.

If you do consider yourself a fan of Tom and Jerrys’ original adventures, then stay far, far away from Tim Story’s (“Barbershop,” “Ride Along”) new animated/live action extravaganza, because while it’s a mess, its not the kind of mess fans want to see Tom and Jerry involved in.

Instead of focusing on Tom and Jerry, like one would assume a film called “Tom & Jerry” would, it instead focuses on Kayla, played by Chloë Grace Moretz (“Kick-Ass,” “Hugo”), who must get Jerry out of the prestigious Royal Gate hotel before a wedding and hires Tom to help her catch him. Moretz is clearly doing the best with what she’s bene handed but can’t help but deliver an annoying and drab performance thanks to an absolutely helpless script.

The rest of the cast, consisting of Michael Peña (“Ant-Man,” “Narcos: Mexico”), Colin Jost (“Saturday Night Live”), Rob Delaney (“Deadpool 2,” “Catastrophe”), Ken Jeong (“Community,” “The Hangover”), and Pallavi Sharda (“Lion,” “Retrograde”), are all just so pathetically forgettable. The worst of the bunch is Peña, continuing his streak from “Jexi” of creating egotistical and vapidly idiotic villains who are just the poster child for annoying modern comedy films. At the very least Jeong realizes what kind of film he’s in, delivering his lines quickly and will 110% enthusiasm to be as cartoonish as possible.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter how good the acting is, which it isn’t, because the script from Kevin Costello (“Brigsby Bear,” “Jean-Claude Van Johnson”) is horrendous. Full of the same clichés and jokes that have poisoned family films like this since before the god-awful live action “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” the plot is an absolute snooze. At its best, it’s boring, and at its worst, it’s insulting with how much it overexplains to the audience. Even five-year-olds can tell when they’re being pandered too. Even if the jokes or plot were tighter, the film would still be a chore to get through because of one basic, fundamental problem.

We are not here to watch a young grifter learn to be honest and better herself. We’re here to see Tom and Jerry beat the crap out of each other in a big budget film. When the film focuses on that, its glorious. Like “The Three Stooges” a few years ago, there are moments of the film that focus on the duo’s classic slapstick that work wondrously. While the cel-shaded animation doesn’t always look as good as 2D would have, when it’s in motion, its glorious. There’s a real charm to watching Jerry clobber Tom with a real-world clothes iron or bowling ball, and the rube-goldberg machines of destruction that are built and meshed with the animation are a real treat.

If only the sections about Tom and Jerry were more than (at best) a third of the film that shares their namesake. Sure, there are inklings here that show that Story and Costello actually have some reverence for the source material. Tom’s angel and devil sides are here, voiced quite well by Lil Rey Howard (“Get Out,” “The Carmichael Show”), and it even features Spike, voiced mediocrely by Bobby Cannavale (“Third Watch,” “The Irishman”), Goldie, and Toodles. Droopy Dog even has two blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos that are the best jokes in the entire film.

Warner Bros. continues their fumbling streak with the characters of Hanna-Barbara after last year’s abysmal “SCOOB!” by taking Tom and Jerry and shoving them into a formulaic and annoying family film that seems almost ashamed to be about them. The few moments that let the pair strut their stuff and get crazy are wonderful, but they’re too few and far between an annoying and idiotic plot that relies far too much on cringy and clichéd jokes and a cast that tried far too hard with too little material. This one goes down like a ton of bricks. 1.5/5