For me, Tom and Jerry was meant to be a trip down memory lane, and in some small segments it was – the rest however was an amalgamation of messy screenwriting, a form of animation which could not decide how it wanted to look, and overall a childish performance from its lead actress. I just want to go on record and announce I’m not the biggest Chloe Grace Moretz fan, especially after watching The 5th Wave, and Greta.
Her character “Kayla” – yes, I had to check her name after the film, when we are first introduced to her, is a New Yorker at heart who cheats her way into a job at a luxury hotel, days before a wedding – amazing. The plot itself was bland and extremely simple, and the characters were barely memorable, but I do acknowledge this is a kids film, so that should be taken into consideration.
The film itself was in development hell, with the film originally being pitched back in 2009, and I would not say its obvious to see, but any film in the past that has had issues during development doesn’t always imply that you’re in for a wild ride when watching the film. There were some positives to the film, some one-liners here and there which did allow a bit of giggling on my behalf, especially Ken Jeong, who is an actor I admire a lot, not that much after this film, but I still admire him…
The one thing I need to turn the attention to is the animation. This film was pitched following the successful The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks franchises, in which the 2D characters from cartoon past were reimagined in a hybrid CG form alongside live-action. The two franchises in my opinion are good, however, it just does not hit the same with Tom and Jerry – maybe its because Tom and Jerry are simply two-dimensional characters who don’t really speak but are instead required to “act” through slapstick comedy… it must have been difficult for producers around whether they wanted the titular characters to talk or not, as many could argue it didn’t pay homage to the original.
However, I would argue the characters were true to the original and at some points, it did feel like I was watching the original cartoons – a saving grace for this film. There are some shots in this film where the CG looks out of place and wrong, unlike films like last year’s Sonic the Hedgehog where even though there is a CG talking Hedgehog on-screen, he looks as if he belongs in that scene and not a character that has been digitally inserted into the film.
‘Tom and Jerry’ – Final Thoughts
Overall, the film is silly, sometimes fun and something I believe more suited to younger ages who I believe will actually get something out of this film. But it suffers from a poor script, forgettable characters who overshadow Tom and Jerry, but I do think they could have done a better job of this film if it were fully animated and did not have the whole idea of forcing the live-action elements which caused the animation to just look weird.
Tom and Jerry is now streaming on HBO Max, until March 28th and is Coming Soon to UK Cinemas. Check out the trailer below:
