Tom & Jerry 2021 Film SPOILER FREE Review

 

Animation fans the characters of Tom & Jerry have been around since 1940's and have spawned one theatrically released animated movie as well as a bunch of direct to DVD animated and a whole bunch animated cartoon TV shows. Well now the famous cat and mouse duo are back this time in a live action / animated hybrid film and so then animation fans , film fans and Tom & Jerry fans here is my review of the 2021 film that is called simply "Tom & Jerry" enjoy.

Now here is where I would normally tell you what the plot of the film is as well as give you my thoughts and opinions on the plot of the film. However this film chose not to have a plot which while not having a story might have worked for the original Tom & Jerry animated theatrical shorts it doesn't work a feature length film and due to the fact that this film doesn't have a plot it means that you can't connect to the characters since your just watching stuff happen for rhyme or reason and that doesn't the film good in my opinion it honestly makes the film feel childish which is ironic given that this film is an adaptation of a pair of cartoon characters but that's honestly how I feel about the lack of actual plot in this film.

Starring in the film is William Hanna as Tom Cat (via archive recordings) and Frank Welker as Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse. Also starring in this film is Nicky Jam as Butch , Bobby Cannavale as Spike , Lil Rel Howery as Tom's Shoulder Devil , Tone Bell as Tom's Shoulder Angel , Chloë Grace Moretz as Kayla , Michael Peña as Terrance , Colin Jost as Ben , Rob Delaney as Mr. DuBros , Ken Jeong as Jackie , Pallavi Sharda as Preeta , Jordan Bolger as Cameron and Patsy Ferran as Joy.

In terms of what I thought about the acting in this film the acting in this film honestly wasn't that bad in my opinion. All of the actors did the best that they could to make the script work and to make there characters work my issue with the acting is that some of the actors were miscast like for example Bobby Cannavale while he does turn in a good performance as Spike he's not the voice that I hear of when I think of Spike if anything you want a character with a much tougher and rougher voice for Spike also miscast in this film is Michael Peña as Terrance simply because Terrance is somebody who is willing to do anything if it means getting a promotion where as Michael Peña just don't give that kind of impression to me personally , however on the whole the acting was like I said really good and alot better then it had any right to be.

Doing the animation for this film are Evolution FX the greats and legends over at Framestore and Lidar Lounge. As you can no doubt work out from any of the above pictures this film uses stylized 2D animation with the actual animation being being 3D CGI animation and I have to say that the animation in this film is honestly really good and the animation is very fast paced which suits not only the characters but the whole Tom & Jerry franchise in my opinion.

One of the things that I loved about this film is the fact that the animation is blended so nicely together with the live action that it makes it hard to tell when the live part of the scene becomes animated. You can see a few examples of what i'm talking about in both this above picture with the elephants and in the picture were I talk about the animation because both of those scenes have animated characters interacting with live action parts of the set and it's done so well that you can't tell when that part of the set becomes animated and trust me I tried looking for any places as to when that part of the set became animation and I honestly couldn't any at all that how well blended the animation is in this film in my humble opinion.

If i'm being honest there's not that much that I can say since I used "other methods" to see this film and the film hasn't been released in America yet. However I can say that thankfully they don't have Tom and Jerry talk or sing in this film (there was going to be another or there but that might be a spoiler so it's been taken out in order to keep this review spoiler free or as spoiler free as possible) which for many myself included was one of the many things that the animated theatrically released Tom & Jerry film which was called "Tom And Jerry: The Movie" and so i'm glad that both Tom & Jerry not only don't talk in this film but also that Tom & Jerry don't sing in this film as well thank god.

Let's take some time to talk about the human characters in this film because honestly they are in my opinion a very mixed bag. Since while you do get some good human characters like Kayla , Terrance and Joy you also get alot of bad human characters as well like for example Mr. DuBros , Jackie , Ben and Preeta who are all there just to be either a one joke character (Mr. DuBros and Jackie) or a no joke character (Ben and Preeta) which is a shame because when the film does give us a good human character like for example Kayla it really does work well in the films favour but since the film seems hell bent on sticking to the the classic Tom & Jerry formular which for some reason includes giving us badly written human characters we are stuck with a human cast of characters that are at best a very mixed bag.

This film has a running time of one hour and twenty eight minuets and fifty one seconds which for a film with very little actual plot that running time is a bit on the long side. I say this because like I said at near the start of the review the film has no plot to speak of and so the film even tho it feels like it lasts for the right time can also be a chore to sit through just because all your doing is watching stuff happen and after a while just watching stuff happen would and in this case does get boring and it gets boring fast in this film in my opinion.

Now then boys and girls since this a comedy film that does mean that I have to talk about the comedy that's in the actual film itself and I have to say that the comedy in this film in my opinion is really good. There are alot of funny moments in this film with sadly the funniest moment in the film for me personally being something that I can't talk about because it's a spoiler and for me personally alot of the slapstick in this film was really funny as well but at the same time I would fully understand it if someone said that both the jokes and the slapstick in this film weren't funny because all forms of comedy are subjective and so what I find funny you guys might not find funny and what I didn't find funny you guys might think is funny.

Overall this is perhaps the best theatrically released Tom & Jerry movie which given that the only other theatrically released Tom & Jerry was the 1992 animated film which was called simply "Tom And Jerry: The Movie"  the fact that this film is a better Tom & Jerry film isn't a high bar to reach. While this film is indeed a good film it's also a film that has alot of faults like for example you know what the outcome of the story by the time you reach the end of the films first act but the film does have some good things as well which like the bad things in this film i've discussed both the god and bad thing s in this film in this very review and as such this film gets a 6 out of 10 from me.

All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from either the official Tom & Jerry fandom wiki page and Google Images. Honestly I can't say which is the best website to use for images from this film since the quality of the image is the exact same on either website but I will say that the official Tom & Jerry fandom wiki page does have more of a verity of images but not all of the images on the official Tom & Jerry fandom wiki page are high definition so I say use whichever website you guys want to use and I do not condone using the method that I use to watch this film.