I really tried to like this movie as I'm a lifelong fan of Tom & Jerry, and recently managed to find the new remasters of the first 40 shorts in 1080p and watched them all, only to become absolutely addicted to it and ended up trying to find the rest.
So, with this all really fresh in my mind and remembering many of the gags I used to love, it is a huge shame how you can truly see the amount of things Tim Story has lazily copied directly from the shorts. Now, if they were expanded on and were executed with even more comic polish then I would applaud him for raising the bar on a classic gag, but instead what we do get is a sub par version of them that actually feels like a disservice to the original storyboard writers who came up with them that absolutely left me in stitches every time no matter how many times you watched it.
That is the true magic of Tom & Jerry, they are timeless icons who have established traits & qualities not only within themselves, but the entire world they live in. This film on the other hand, clearly does not understand the source material or does, but refuses to acknowledge it here with what I can only call 'personal preference soundtracking' rather than possibly combining the old orchestral score with your genre choices or even sticking to the classic fully and elevating it even more.
The plot also all just feels way to safe, almost as if the original concept designs for this film were produced solely from intense meetings with WB execs trying to navigate how to make this story through pure bulletpoints and politically correct motivated plot devices, that it all just turns into this highly formulaic unoriginal story with no real weight, other than to show the brief moments sprinkled through of true comic slapstick T&J (which is where 2 stars come from) and the other 2 are for certain scenes where they managed to create some brilliant animated atmosphere where the 3D models look really great (e.g Dog Pound scene) and of course the legend that is Micheal Peña who definitely stole the show whenever he was on screen.
I think the main thing I struggle with in this film, is the jarring mesh between live-action & what is almost nearly 2D animation that adds the main problem here: Why in 2021 do we have a film starring one of the most famous Duo's of all time, backed by a powerhouse studio WB, be actually worse production than a 1988 Film (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) that literally did exactly the same thing but achieved it with flying colours? Does not make sense.
Then again I think the last real problem here is not utilizing the great animation model's of all the classic characters of the 1940 - 1958 Shorts that for me will always be the true character designs of these lovable guys. They just hit the mark and also evolved through time, but by and large they had a very distinct look that WB tried their best to copy in their recent reboot of the Tom & Jerry show, but they literally just look 'flat' with no dynamic as well as over saturated colour that is just too 'Flash' Animation style for me...
Unfortunately, they probably decided to stick with the recent reboot animation style to be unified with that series, which I do understand but after trying an episode of it, I just felt irritation for the animation style (which is so overwhelmingly modernised & digital that it probably takes a 1/3 of the time to produce a 24min episode compared to the hand drawn original 7min shorts!) and the lack of compelling storyboards with bold & original risqué gags was the reason I ultimately turned it off.
This very much feels the same, however I did make it all the way to the end and even the bonus scene, so I would say it is worth a watch for the target demographic, but also for anyone into the recent reboot or completest fans of Tom & Jerry.
PS - I wish Droopy had more screen time! Haha
So, with this all really fresh in my mind and remembering many of the gags I used to love, it is a huge shame how you can truly see the amount of things Tim Story has lazily copied directly from the shorts. Now, if they were expanded on and were executed with even more comic polish then I would applaud him for raising the bar on a classic gag, but instead what we do get is a sub par version of them that actually feels like a disservice to the original storyboard writers who came up with them that absolutely left me in stitches every time no matter how many times you watched it.
That is the true magic of Tom & Jerry, they are timeless icons who have established traits & qualities not only within themselves, but the entire world they live in. This film on the other hand, clearly does not understand the source material or does, but refuses to acknowledge it here with what I can only call 'personal preference soundtracking' rather than possibly combining the old orchestral score with your genre choices or even sticking to the classic fully and elevating it even more.
The plot also all just feels way to safe, almost as if the original concept designs for this film were produced solely from intense meetings with WB execs trying to navigate how to make this story through pure bulletpoints and politically correct motivated plot devices, that it all just turns into this highly formulaic unoriginal story with no real weight, other than to show the brief moments sprinkled through of true comic slapstick T&J (which is where 2 stars come from) and the other 2 are for certain scenes where they managed to create some brilliant animated atmosphere where the 3D models look really great (e.g Dog Pound scene) and of course the legend that is Micheal Peña who definitely stole the show whenever he was on screen.
I think the main thing I struggle with in this film, is the jarring mesh between live-action & what is almost nearly 2D animation that adds the main problem here: Why in 2021 do we have a film starring one of the most famous Duo's of all time, backed by a powerhouse studio WB, be actually worse production than a 1988 Film (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) that literally did exactly the same thing but achieved it with flying colours? Does not make sense.
Then again I think the last real problem here is not utilizing the great animation model's of all the classic characters of the 1940 - 1958 Shorts that for me will always be the true character designs of these lovable guys. They just hit the mark and also evolved through time, but by and large they had a very distinct look that WB tried their best to copy in their recent reboot of the Tom & Jerry show, but they literally just look 'flat' with no dynamic as well as over saturated colour that is just too 'Flash' Animation style for me...
Unfortunately, they probably decided to stick with the recent reboot animation style to be unified with that series, which I do understand but after trying an episode of it, I just felt irritation for the animation style (which is so overwhelmingly modernised & digital that it probably takes a 1/3 of the time to produce a 24min episode compared to the hand drawn original 7min shorts!) and the lack of compelling storyboards with bold & original risqué gags was the reason I ultimately turned it off.
This very much feels the same, however I did make it all the way to the end and even the bonus scene, so I would say it is worth a watch for the target demographic, but also for anyone into the recent reboot or completest fans of Tom & Jerry.
PS - I wish Droopy had more screen time! Haha