I used to watch a lot of Tom and Jerry as a kid. Tom and Jerry just hitting each other a lot were surprisingly entertaining when I was a kid. When I heard they were making a live-action movie with Tom and Jerry, I just thought in my head that they are somehow going to ruin it. The premise is “A legendary rivalry re-emerges when Jerry moves into New York City’s finest hotel on the eve of the wedding of the century, forcing the desperate event planner to hire Tom to get rid of him. As mayhem ensues, the escalating cat-and-mouse battle soon threatens to destroy her career, the wedding, and possibly the hotel itself”. So did the director, Tim Story, succeed in retaining the spirit of Tom and Jerry or completely ruin it?
The thing I did enjoy about Tom and Jerry (2021) is that Tom and Jerry’s antics are pretty entertaining. Tom trying to find ways to take down Jerry while Jerry outsmarts him are still funny to watch even after all these years. I also enjoyed that all the animals in this universe are animated which is an interesting idea and visually it looks all right. I don’t mind the 3D look with a vintage 2D finish design of the animals including Tom and Jerry. They look great in the movie and it has a modern feel to it. The human actors are all adequate as well.
Unfortunately,
that’s all I enjoyed the movie. Tom and Jerry are barely in the movie
as they are being overshadowed by a plot involving a wedding and some
human characters. It would be slightly acceptable if the human
characters were good but they are all unlikeable. Kayla (Chloë Grace
Moretz) is the protagonist who is introduced by lying and manipulating a
person into not applying for a job in the hotel and then steals her
resume. Yeah, it’s clear they are trying to set an arc of redemption for
her but she is the protagonist and you need them to be likeable in some
way and this is not it. It also gives a terrible message to kids that
they should lie their way to the top. There is also a sort of human
antagonist in Terence (Michael Peña) who is the hotel’s event manager
and antagonistic against Kayla. He does some terrible things near the
end of the movie but he still comes out with barely any repercussions
for his action. There are some other supporting characters with their
quirks but they are all so one-note and over the top that it’s cringy.
There
is a story involving the wedding of Ben (Colin Jost) and Preeta
(Pallavi Sharda) with Ben being too bombastic with the wedding and not
listening to Preeta is uninteresting. It’s so easily predictable as they
hit all the cliché beats while taking the audience and kids away from
what they care about, Tom and Jerry. While Tom and Jerry’s humour is
fun, human humour is atrociously bad. None of it lands and they keep
going for this cringe humour which doesn’t work. I don’t remember
laughing at any of the comedy with the human characters whatsoever.
Additionally, there are way too many pop and rap songs in here that just
doesn’t fit with Tom and Jerry and it makes me wish they used the
classic orchestral and trumpet style of the cartoon.
Overall, the director did not succeed in making a good Tom and Jerry movie. However, there is some enjoyment to be had and if you have kids then I can see them enjoying this for 90 minutes. I just wished that the director kept the focus more around the titled characters instead of trying to fill it up with some unnecessary melodrama. Hopefully, Warner Bros. gets it next time if they ever make another Tom and Jerry movie.
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