Tom & Jerry (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Sunday, February 28

PG Running Time: 101 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

Fans of the Tom & Jerry brand will likely be interesting in sharing this with their kids and/or family members.
With theaters starting to open back up cautiously a year into COVID-19, Tom & Jerry does offer families, if so inclined, the opportunity to carefully return to the theater for a collective movie experience. And who doesn’t miss those?
With that said, a family film, made available day-and-date in your own home, is something that can equally be as fun if you grab the popcorn, pajamas, and blankets and make it an experience.

NO

Tom & Jerry is not good.
The actors seem uninspired, the strange two-dimensional animation technique alongside real actors tries to give it a throwback feel, but Tim Story’s film is just not appealing in presentation or performance.
These 101 minutes feel like 301 minutes. The painful lack of humor, or appearance of kids of any age (in a kids movie, no less!), or, like, zero nice characters (save one bartender) makes one wonder how so many little details regarding what makes a movie interesting to kids and families got missed.

OUR REVIEW

The partnership between Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO Max, where the studio is premiering their 2021 slate of films in theaters and simultaneously to HBO Max subscribers does not guarantee that all of those offerings will be good films. Truth be told, outside of Oscar hopeful Judas and the Black Messiah, the films released so far have been largely underwhelming.

Tom & Jerry is by far the worst up to this point; a baffling, turgid affair where human beings co-exist with animated animals who cannot talk, but apparently can sing (with Auto-tune!!!), play piano, and read, write, and otherwise interact like humans can.

A live-action film, with 2-D cartoon animals popping up here and there but not a human kid to be found anywhere, Tom & Jerry is a movie that takes the two iconic enemies and relegates them to the B-story. The first full-length Tom & Jerry film in 29 years focuses instead on a wedding of two wealthy celebrities and a young Millennial con artist who connives her way into working at the Royal Gate Hotel, a 5-star New York City establishment where the wedding is set to take place.

After a series of misadventures, Tom the Cat and Jerry the Mouse find themselves entrenched within the walls of the Royal Gate. The focus though is on Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz), who steals a woman’s resume and inexplicably passes herself off as a wedding planner only to then be hired by a dim-witted hotel manager (Rob Delaney). She works alongside a rather intense manager, Terence (Michael Peña), in charge of accommodations and tasked with delivering a perfect wedding experience for social media darlings Ben (Colin Jost) and Preeta (Pallavi Sharda).

Moretz is a game participant, but there is a jarring lack of interest generated by any of this. Acknowledging that this is geared for kids through and through, Tom & Jerry is so predictable, with events telegraphed so obviously, kids will likely guess how all of this shakes out long before the movie reaches its final act.

The violent encounters Tom & Jerry have with one another are steeped in tradition and are largely harmless here. Though it sets up an interesting world where if Tom and Jerry are seemingly immortal beings, attempts to harm them or put them in danger become rather meaningless.

Kayla really needs this job it seems, and the human and animated worlds fully collide when, at one point, when Jerry is discovered running around the hotel. Kayla decides to hire Tom to root him out and eliminate him from the situation. When the manager agrees, you can almost hear thousands (millions?) of kids and families collectively rolling their eyes far back into their heads.

Also fun for next to no one watching at home or in a theater: Ben and Preeta working through marriage jitters and Ben’s immaturity in always playing with technology and wanting exorbitant requests like huge elephants to ride into the wedding ballroom. Somehow, director Tim Story and screenwriter Kevin Costello either determined, or were told that, Tom and Jerry were not interesting enough on their own. And so, we get a movie that uses this iconic cartoon property to deliver a story and movie antithetical to why most families chose to watch this in the first place.

A family film with no inspiring message. A cartoon with no enthusiasm. A kids movie with no kids. A comedy with no humor. Tom & Jerry offers lead-footed acting from Peña and a shocking lack of range from Jost; everyone seems to be spinning their wheels and uncertain as to what type of performance they should be delivering.

Once everything resolves after 101 lumbering, eye-rubbing minutes, Tom & Jerry has succeeded at one thing: Earning distinction as one of the worst films of the year.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Peña, Jordan Bolger, Rob Delaney, Colin Jost, Pallavi Sharda, Patsy Ferran, Ken Jeong, Camilla Arfwedson, Tom, Jerry

Director: Tim Story
Written by: Kevin Costello
Based on characters created by WIlliam Hanna, Joseph Barbara
Release Date: February 26, 2021
Warner Bros.

Fans of the Tom & Jerry brand will likely be interesting in sharing this with their kids and/or family members.

With theaters starting to open back up cautiously a year into COVID-19, Tom & Jerry does offer families, if so inclined, the opportunity to carefully return to the theater for a collective movie experience. And who doesn’t miss those?

With that said, a family film, made available day-and-date in your own home, is something that can equally be as fun if you grab the popcorn, pajamas, and blankets and make it an experience.

Tom & Jerry is not good.

The actors seem uninspired, the strange two-dimensional animation technique alongside real actors tries to give it a throwback feel, but Tim Story’s film is just not appealing in presentation or performance.

These 101 minutes feel like 301 minutes. The painful lack of humor, or appearance of kids of any age (in a kids movie, no less!), or, like, zero nice characters (save one bartender) makes one wonder how so many little details regarding what makes a movie interesting to kids and families got missed.