To better appreciate the 2021 Warner Bros. hybrid live-action/animation reboot of the venerable Tom & Jerry cartoon franchise (actually an MGM property, dating way back to 1940), we ask you to call up dim memories of the 1993 theatrical release Tom and Jerry: The Movie, wherein the ever-fighting cartoon cat and mouse suddenly turned politically correct goody-goody guys to help a little girl in distress—and they also talked and sang. It gave a new meaning to "cartoon violence" by bleeding most of the entertainment out of the rambunctious duo.
Here, hedging bets somewhat between different age-group audiences, director Tim Story backs into the combative Hanna-Barbara heroes via an okay Disney-ish live farce.
Jobless NYC go-getter Kayla (Chloe Grace Moretz) bluffs and lies her way into an event-planning job with a posh Manhattan hotel hosting a heavily hyped cross-cultural wedding between two celebrities (Colin Jost and Pallavi Sharda playing a sorta-kinda takeoff on Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra, or maybe not).
But resourceful Jerry the Mouse has scandalously taken up residence in the hotel. To keep her ill-gotten gig, Kayla recruits Jerry's running nemesis Tom the Cat to get rid of the rodent pest. In the film's fanciful Big Apple, all animals are portrayed by hand-drawn-style cartoons, and eventually, a tough-guy bulldog, a pampered pussycat, a couple of elephants, and a tiger are also involved in the escalating cat-vs-mouse mayhem.
It's overlong at 101 minutes but has more clever bits than jaded J-section browsers might expect (including nostalgic cameos by a few other Hanna-Barbera creations). Returning T&J to their original no-dialogue mime slapstick was certainly a good idea.
The disc is packed with generous extras, including deleted scenes and explanations from Story about his creative choices (if animation fans think there is too much of the live-actor comedy, it was originally even more so), plus storyboards of intriguing roads not taken, and behind-the-scenes footage of how all the mixed-media filmmaking was accomplished.
This just passes muster for getting Tom and Jerry relaunched (doubtless more spinoffs are forthcoming, probably much lower-budget, direct-to-video format). While no classic, the prominence of the title, fine presentation, and ultimate respect to the original material earn it a place of prominence in children's collections. (Aud: P)