In a perfect world, Tom and Jerry wouldn’t be necessary. In this world, Tom and Jerry are absolutely necessary. From Warner Animation Group and directed by Tim Story comes an animated cat, an animated mouse, and a whole lot of live action shenanigans.
Kenneth Laster: Ah the c i n e m á. When I majored in Cinema and Media studies, never could I have predicted the chain of events that would draw a direct line of a Global Pandemic→ Warner Bros attempting a controversial Day and Date Streaming plan through HBO Max → You and I discussing the 2021 Live Action Tom & Jerry film on a premiere comics website. We live in interesting times…
Ari Bard: Well put Kenneth, but here we are, and I think we need to appreciate the gift that our Warner Brothers overlords have given us when it comes to, as Rob Delaney’s Mr. Dubros would put it, Thomas & Jerome. But before we dive into the profound questions about what this movie means for society today or perhaps its commentary on upscale hotel practices, we must answer a much more foundational question…
What is this Film?
KL: The best description I have of this film is that it is the exact movie I would watch in a backseat dvd player in a rental car on the way to visit my grandma as a child. Similar movies in this genre are Alvin and the Chipmunks, the appropriately named Are We There Yet?, and the more age inappropriate Rush Hour 2. However we are not in the back seat of a rental car, so we must ask ourselves, “What is Tim Story’s Tom & Jerry?”
AB: Despite being located in the middle of New York City, you are absolutely right about the minivan aesthetic here Kenneth. It’s also interesting that you mention Alvin and the Chipmunks, because Tom & Jerry largely boils down to a diluted version of that movie with regard to the level of humor, development of the live-action cast, and use of the animated characters they’re supposed to be featuring. I’m not sure how you feel about Tom and Jerry as a property, but I think that they exemplify the merits of cartoon shorts for a reason. The slapstick humor of a cat and mouse going to extreme lengths to cause mischief does have a time limit, and perhaps 100 minutes exceeded that by quite a bit. Nevertheless, the choices made in the quest to fill the runtime are quite fascinating and leave you with so many questions. I’ll start with the very first question I had, why does Tom have to pretend to be blind in order to make money when he’s a cat playing the piano?
KL: An excellent question! I do think there was a good line from the crowd when his grift ended with someone just saying “Oh now he’s just a regular cat playing the piano” and honestly I love when the movie allows itself to be very dumb. There’s another line on the same wavelength where Rob Delaney’s character suggests the solution to hiring Tom is to give him a “jaunty little hat and a name tag”. Those felt like some moments where the movie was beautifully self aware. I also think it is metatextuality hilarious that they gave Tom a passion for playing a piano. It truly reads as some screenwriter somewhere saying we have to give him a hook, something to ground this cartoon cat. I do agree with you that Thomas and Jerome are at their best in shorts, and I think that’s the same here where my biggest complaint is that there’s not enough just wild slapstick. I think the game here should have been playing with that escalation but instead we have…Colin Jost… But we can get to him later. Ari, how familiar are you with the works of Tim Story?
AB: I mean, I’ve seen more of his movies than I thought I had. It’s been awhile, but I’ve seen both Fantastic Four movies and Ride Along. Shaft was also the movie that was playing the very last time I was on an airplane. I’m not sure I’ve absorbed enough of his directing, however, to really explore how Tom & Jerry fits within this context. What are the keys to the Tim Story cinematic mythos?
KL: You actually have seen more of the Tim Story cinematic universe than me! I’m not entirely sure but when I found out he directed this it made complete sense. I think there’s an argument that this is a spiritual successor to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. There’s a wedding no one cares about, the high points are around a playful rivalry and all of the action could be better. I also remember there being some good/chaotic needle drops in the FF movies as well which this movie has in droves. Tim Story also explains my confusion at why all the cats were explicitly Black, which is an incredibly chaotic choice which I will think about weekly. But I think ultimately it makes so much sense that Tim Story has done Barbershop, Taxi, Ride Along, and now Tom & Jerry. The real work of an auteur. But now that we have a grasp on what the film is, now let’s discuss who is in it and why.
Why is Colin Jost here?
KL: Who let him in here!
AB: I have no idea and this man only serves as an obstacle of my Tom & Jerry viewing experience. I have had the (mis?)fortune of seeing an episode or two of SNL, and I believe Jost does get teased on Weekend Update for his marriage to Scarlett Johansson. It made things a little more bearable when I was able to imagine Colin Jost playing a version of himself, again choosing to lean into the perception of this movie’s self-awareness rather than shy away from it. Still, he is very hard to tolerate and rounds out the bottom of a live-action cast who were… trying their best, wouldn’t you say Kenneth?
KL: Every time he was on screen I was very upset and I can’t explain why. Truly just…a void of charisma which is hard because the character is also just…not likeable? I simply cannot get into my irrational manifesto against Colin Jost but seeing his name so early in the credits immediately created an antagonistic relationship with this film. Pallavi Sharda seemed nice enough but truly a terrible choice to make so much of this children’s film about a Cat and Mouse bonking each over the head revolve around a very boring wedding of two very boring socialites. But we can get into the Hotel Staff aka the other humans. We get Ant-Man alum, Michael Peña who is…trying! He’s kind of the foil in this but it kind of misses for me. Rob Delaney is here, and he made me laugh with the jaunty hat line. Ken Jeong is earning another check as a chef in this so good for him.
There’s one unsung hero in this film, Patsy Ferran, who plays Joy the Bellgirl and she’s supposed to be the “weirdo” character but honestly she was the audience insert for me. She was the most relatable, I could see us being friends and I fully believe that within the world of the film, she’s really funny on lesbian Tik Tok. Anyway, Chloë Grace Moretz is also here and I really realized I hadn’t known what she looked like despite her being a comic book fancast favorite. But before we get into the former star of Big Momma’s House 2, do you have any thoughts on the broader human cast?
AB: Your remarks on each really hit the mark for me. The wedding is rather pointless and I never had any investment towards wanting or not wanting the couple to get married, although I suppose it was a small part of me rooting against Colin Jost because, as you said, he is not likeable. Here’s the thing, if you’re going to poorly mask that you need to fill time and space with a live action case using a poorly devised romantic subplot, please do not revolve said subplot around cloudy communication issues! We have had decades of poor communication being the underlying cause behind every romantic problem under the sun and is it too much to ask for a little more thought and nuance? I actually felt kind of bad for Michael Peña, because I didn’t like seeing him play such an unlikeable, uptight man. Sure he did so well, but he shouldn’t have had to in the first place.
As you said, the other cast members exist, but thank you for pointing out Joy the Bellgirl. While she did often play a little too much into the type of humor I liked the least in the movie which was, “character talks too much until they realize no one is listening anymore or they’ve weirded out the whole room,” she also had some of my favorite lines in the movie. Also her whole explanation behind discovering Jerry’s tiny door cracked me up. Alas, I suppose we should move on to the star of the movie, Chloë Grace Moretz, who plays a rather amoral protagonist wouldn’t you say?
KL: Yeah! She really was a rogue but also such an ill-defined one. I had such a hard time pinning down her deal beyond, plucky human protagonist which is disappointing! We live in the age of the scammer! One of my weekly pods is Scam Goddess, and I gotta say…Ms. Moretz’s scam artistry leaves a lot to be desired… It really felt like she just kind of stumbled into this scam which is fine! Aladdin from the film Aladdin too was a fly by the seat of the pants scammer and that we enjoy. But she really just…becomes an employee which is a lot less interesting. The scammer origins kind of feel like an afterthought to give her the same scrappy roots as Thomas and Jerome. However she does learn lying is wrong and there is a happily ever after there with her hooking up the person whose resume she stole and Michael Peña so there’s that. I could critique more but this is a movie for little baby children, so I’ll let my final words on the live action cast rest here: there’s a reason that humans only exist from the neck down in the Tom and Jerry Cinematic Universe…
Let’s get Looney
KL: Let’s talk about the real star of the show: Spike the Dog (and the other animated animals).
AB: Were they the stars of the show though? Honestly, my biggest gripe with the movie is that despite being the stars, they weren’t always given enough to do and it seemed like the studio tried to put every different version of the characters into this one movie, especially when it comes to Spike. Spike holds a lot of range in the shorts. Sometimes he’s just as goofy and gullible as Tom and other times he’s a loyal enforcer. Warner Bros didn’t seem to know which version to bring here, so they brought both poorly. While I genuinely appreciated the singular head bump and baseball bat beatdown we got to see, it was largely undermined by the poop jokes that they also threw his way. Maybe I’m too high brow on my slapstick humor, but I just wanted there to be a little more class at times, you know? Luckily we had Jerry and his phenomenal interior decorating skills to bring that in spades, right Kenneth?
KL: They did indeed do Spike dirty…I am a connoisseur of lowbrow humor myself, and I will not balk at a gastrointestinal goof. However! It did not work here. Spike is so much more than a hot stinky shit machine! He’s a BUFF DOG! Just seeing him move is inherently silly! Built for some good slapstick. You don’t waste that gold mine on a hot stinky shit joke All that being said I did cheer when I saw him and Toots (the beautiful woman cat) enter the film because I had just boo’d when Colin Jost entered right before. But yes! I love Jerry’s lovely little mouse home. I thought it was hilarious that he was listening to Jodecei for no reason. I always loved seeing the little mouse interior design in the cartoon and was very pleased with this homage. Overall I really did enjoy the animation choices and style! I liked that it was 2-D-ish. It really brought me back to the Golden Age of Space Jam, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (two movies I haven’t seen) and I loved the hard and fast rule that every single animal is animated. What were your thoughts on the animation?
AB: I largely enjoyed the animation, but I think they took a lot of shortcuts with their choices. A large part of a successful Tom and Jerry cartoon is the chaos, and we typically get a panoramic view. Here they often swept everything up in one big dust cloud which sometimes cheapened the effect. Other than that, however, I appreciated that Tom and Jerry were silent except Tom can sing, and that most of the other animals could talk. The voiceover scene transitions from the pigeon were bizarre but somewhat charming. The 2-D-ish animation, as you put it, felt like home. I love that style. The elephants and peacocks were a lot of fun as well. I think the animation was good, but the problem is whenever they try to make a movie that balances animation and live action, I just think they compromise in all the wrong areas and end up with this result.
KL: It’s a strange mix for sure! I feel like the animation is something that made it hard for me to write this off completely. Like this isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but the 2-D animation, on top of using archival audio for Tom’s screams and other sound effects shows a clear respect and admiration for what came before. But it feels like at its core, it’s missing a lot of what made those elements work. It feels not exactly soulless, but misguided. I think if I were to compare this to another 2020s reboot of a beloved Hanna-Barbera property, Scoob. I think there’s just a bit more understanding of what’s important but not a full one. But before I get on a tangent about my strong Scooby Doo opinions, do you have any final thoughts?
AB: We are definitely on the same wavelength with the Scoob comparison. I’ll just say in the end that Tom & Jerry along with the rest of these types of movies can be so much better. I think ever since Who Framed Roger Rabbit was successful with it’s hybrid formula that balanced its audience well, studio executives just seem to point and say, “we want that!” But that isn’t quite how it works. You have to tailor what you’re making to the classic franchise that you’re using. Whether it be Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, or Tom and Jerry, there is no magic formula for turning classic cartoons into hit movies. Please just give them the respect they deserve and put some thought into how best to use these properties and I’m sure a genuinely great version of these movies can be made.
KL: Kid’s cinema can be good! Part of me is exhausted with adaptations, reboots, and endless IP farms but The Lego Movie oh so long ago revealed that there is gold in those hills if there’s care and attention. Sadly for the misadventures of Thomas and Jerome…nothing gold can stay.
Ari Bard is a huge comic fan studying Mechanical Engineering so he can finally figure out how the Batmobile works.
Kenneth Laster is a critic, cartoonist, and cryptid with a movie degree.
