In the era of classic remakes, no title seems to have been left untouched, including “Tom and Jerry.” This classic favorite that has been watched by generations has been remade into an odd live action-animation hybrid, with everything being real except for all the animals in the movie. Overall, we found the movie to be quite bland and poorly written, and although we wished that Tom and Jerry were revitalized and introduced to a new generation of children, this movie did not accomplish that.
Firstly, the plot was quite dull: The film follows Kayla (Chloe Grace Moretz), a young woman trying to make her way in New York City. She ends up stealing someone else’s resume to get a job at the luxurious Royal Gate Hotel, which is about to host the wedding of a celebrity couple.
So where do Tom and Jerry come in? Well, Tom is a street musician who no longer has a job after his piano gets broken. Jerry lives in the hotel and even has his own little door. Neither of them speak, like in the original cartoon. I don’t know how no one noticed it, but it only became an issue when Jerry was spotted in the kitchen. Well, Kayla has the genius idea of hiring Tom to catch Jerry––because, of course, when you have a mouse problem, you get yourself a cat (we can tell you a lot about this one). And so begin the epic battles of Tom and Jerry.
Maybe we are getting too old for this (though we are avid cartoon fans), but the movie was just not funny. Neither the jokes nor the fighting were of any comedic value, and it felt very forced. Though it was nice to see some of their old jokes being repeated, and we felt a bit nostalgic over it, there was nothing original added to Tom and Jerry. Oh, and then Tom sang? In the movie? Tom, the cat that never speaks, had a solo singing act. Why? Adding to the randomness, there were peacocks during mating season.
The movie just kept going and going. It was just too long and there was not enough actual plot to justify the hundred minutes of our lives that this movie took. In the last 20 minutes, Kayla confessed that she was not who she said she was, which apart from being painfully cliche, made no sense. Yes the wedding was a wreck (because elephants and mice don’t mix, surprise surprise), but it was not really her fault, and all she did was put herself in a bad place.
The wedding itself was central to the movie; however, it really had nothing to do with Tom and Jerry (other than the fact that they started the mess at the wedding). Why is this event central to the movie if it’s supposed to be about Tom and Jerry? Secondly, the couple had more issues than just the fact that their wedding was ruined, so why is it that when the venue was fixed, they still got married? Those guys needed some serious couples counseling. Another question we had was when exactly did Tom and Jerry become such good friends with Kayla that they decided to bury the hatchet to help her? Even though the movie was long, there were a bunch of plot holes.
Here’s the saddest part about the movie: It would still make sense without Tom and Jerry in it. This film felt like a story about a girl just trying to make it in New York had an affair with the original cartoon. The resulting bastard child was a misunderstanding of a movie that had no true plot and no true point. So much so that it felt like this movie was already made and then it was suddenly converted to a “Tom and Jerry” movie at the last minute. All in all, it was best put by Erik Adams: “Tom and Jerry are supporting characters in their own movie.” Everyone in the movie had some kind of storyline––except Tom and Jerry.
