Tom & Jerry Review: Enough With This Fluff
- naterichard98
- Mar 7, 2021
- 3 min read
DIRECTED BY: TIM STORY STARRING: CHLOË GRACE MORETZ, MICHAEL PEÑA, & COLIN JOST
RATED PG FOR CARTOON VIOLENCE, RUDE HUMOR AND BRIEF LANGUAGE
LENGTH: 101 MINUTES
Who didn't grow up watching Tom & Jerry? Seriously, who didn't. The show first debuted in 1940 and despite it's original run ending in 1958, the famed cat and mouse duo has managed to stay in the pop-culture lexicon with various revivals, spin-offs, straight to DVD movies, and an infamous 1992 animated movie where the frenemies *gasp* talk for the first time. Hollywood has had a knack for churning out live-action/CGI adaptations of children's cartoons for years from the critically reviled Smurfs franchise, to the innuendo-laden Scooby-Doo movies, or the irritating Alvin and The Chipmunks series. Tom & Jerry was set to get a live action-CGI of their own complete with uncanny valley interpretations. Yet this 2021 update of Tom & Jerry, directed by Tim Story, takes the Roger Rabbit and Space Jam route with giving the duo (and the film's animal inhabitants) their classic look, emulating the classic 2D style we've come to expect.
This new Tom & Jerry film follows Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz) a scrappy young woman who swindles her way into a job at the Royal Gate Hotel in New York. Under the eye of the suspicious and high-strung Terence (Michael Peña), Kayla tries to help organize the highly touted wedding of a celebrity influencer couple (Colin Jost, Pallavi Sharda). In the meantime, Jerry 'the' Mouse decides to take residence at the hotel, which causes Kayla to recruit Tom Cat to maintain the natural order of things and get rid of Jerry.
In a movie titled Tom & Jerry, one would appropriately assume that the cat and mouse would be the main focus of the film. They'd be mistaken as the slapstick duo is subsided for an wholly uninteresting, flat, and simply dull human story that is filled with forgettable characters and numerous fart jokes. While there are times where the classic humor of the cartoon is present and there are even times where it's humor feels earned and genuinely funny, those moments don't come frequently enough. Not to mention that Tom and Jerry themselves feel much more mean spirited than what we're used to, while the audience has always grown up rooting for Jerry, here the mouse comes off a bit irritating.
Moretz's performance as Kayla is one of the film's sole shining qualities, she is clearly committed to the role and is one of the sole actors in the film who is actually giving an effort rather than sleepwalking through their performance or dialing it up to 11. Peña and Ken Jeong are two extremely talented actors who have proven that they can be quite funny, but here their performances are potentially even more cartoony than the cartoon characters themselves. Jost simply seems like he doesn't even care to be in the film and is simply there solely to pick up a paycheck in a performance that proves to be quite grating.
The animation of Tom & Jerry is actually fairly strong and Story and crew do a commendable enough job to staying true to the 'all animals are cartoons' concept. Though the compliment that Tom and Jerry aren't terrifyingly recreated in CGI to look more human isn't exactly that high of praise.
Tom & Jerry is a misfire to put it lightly. It does have some bright spots, but other than that this is a film that may mildly entertain the little ones with the small amount of cartoon antics, but the adults in the audience will likely rather watch something else.
2/5 Stars
Tom & Jerry is now playing in theaters and is now available to stream on HBO Max for a limited time.
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