Tom & Jerry (2021)

You could easily argue that this film is nothing special, but personally, I liked the fact that it delivered a solid dose of nostalgic, animated slapstick comedy, without attempting to deviate from the classic formula by introducing unnecessary plot or (even worse) having the lead duo speak.

Premise: When Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz) blags herself a job at an exclusive hotel hosting a celebrity wedding, the events manager Terrence (Michael Peña) tasks her with ridding the hotel of its uninvited rodent guest, Jerry. When all else fails, she enlists the help of Jerry’s arch rival, Tom.

Review:

Many, many comedy TV shows have struggled to successfully make the transition to a feature film format, and often this is because they feel the need to be bigger and more expansive, in order to justify the move to the big screen. So you’ll often see tropes like the TV comedy characters having to go on a road trip, or being transplanted overseas, for their “big screen debut” – but more often than not, by striving to concoct an “epic” storyline that justifies the bigger budget adventure, the writers lose sight of whatever it was that made the TV comedy work in the first place.

The reason I’m saying all of this, is because one of the things I enjoyed about this big screen version of Tom & Jerry is that it doesn’t try to add extra bells and whistles to the established format and instead delivers exactly what I wanted from a Tom & Jerry movie, namely lots of nostalgic cartoon slapstick comedy as the cat tries unsuccessfully to catch the ever elusive mouse. Whereas 1992’s unloved Tom and Jerry: The Movie moved away from the traditional comedic tone of the cartoons and replaced it with a lacklustre story about the duo becoming friends and helping a runaway (and also made the terrible decision to have the duo talk to each other in the movie), the plot to 2021’s Tom & Jerry is mainly just an excuse to give the duo a larger backdrop (i.e. New York) for their continued squabbling.

“…Michael Peña is consistently the funniest thing in most movies he’s in…”

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of screen time devoted to the human cast (after all, you couldn’t fill an hour and a half with just a cat and mouse fighting), but the human roles are fun, comedic characters in their own rights. Chloë Grace Moretz is great as the lead character Kayla, and she not only plays very convincingly alongside the CGI characters, but she’s also genuinely entertaining on her own as well. But the comedy MVP is (once again) Michael Peña, who is consistently the funniest thing in most movies he’s in. Here he’s the closest thing the film has to an antagonist, as his events manager doesn’t trust Kayla (arguably rightly so), but Peña can always be relied on to deploy a great one-liner, that may go over the kids’ heads but should certainly keep the adults amused.

Chloë Grace Moretz and Michael Peña are surrounded by a great supporting cast, including Rob Delaney as the hotel manager, and Colin Jost and Pallavi Sharda as the celebrity couple planning to tie the knot at the hotel. All of them appear to be having a great time, playing larger than life roles with their tongues firmly in their cheeks.

“…recaptures the simple childhood joy of watching a cartoon mouse outwit a cartoon cat…”

All in all, this film is not going to win you over if you come to it as a cynical adult – the plot is paper thin, the comedy largely revolves around a cartoon mouse outwitting a cartoon cat, and there’s probably nothing here that you’ve not seen before. But if you watch it through the eyes of your inner child and embrace the nostalgia, then who doesn’t want to be transported back to the simple childhood joy of watching a cartoon mouse outwit a cartoon cat?

I think the under-10s will enjoy this film for what it is – an extended version of a traditional Tom & Jerry cartoon. And personally, I really enjoyed it too for the exact same reason.