Tom & Jerry (2021) 

  When a movie's development process stalls for longer than anticipated, it becomes clear that the film is stuck in development hell. This concept isn't entirely new in filmmaking, with many notable Hollywood films having gone through this process, stemming from issues that may arise during the pre-production process. While some of these films manage to escape being stuck in purgatory and see the light of day, the result will always differ in various degrees of success. Some were worth the struggle (Alita: Battle Angel, Watchmen, Mad Max: Fury Road) while others should have been canned right from the start (Death Note, The Postman, The Smurfs). Sadly, in the case of today's subject, all those years spent in development were utterly wasted in what became the finished product, not being worth all the trouble to lift out of its development limbo. 

  

  Tom & Jerry is a cinematic catastrophe in every conceivable way imaginable and a massive embarrassment to the legacy of its titular cat and mouse duo. The ghost of Gene Deitch can take great comfort in knowing that his Tom and Jerry shorts from Rembrandt films are no longer the worst thing to ever happen to Tom and Jerry. It's a movie that had little to be excited about, as evidenced by the people involved in its production, or how this movie was dead on arrival judging by its moronic and lifeless trailer, created by a studio that had no faith in the project. It honestly felt like something we would have seen back in the days of Alvin and the Chipmunks but was left in the oven for too long and came out at the wrong time for the wrong audience. With a script that gives us unimaginative characters and hopeless attempts to be hip and cool with the moviegoing crowd, it's no wonder how this movie came off as being out of touch with the audience upon release.

  Tom and Jerry need no introduction, as the famous cat and mouse duo with an appetite for hyper-violent and hilarious slapstick have proven to have an everlasting legacy that is still going strong to this day. They were the product of the two legendary animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. They would establish the famous animation studio Hanna-Barbera, which produced a long list of classic animated series such as The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and The Jetsons. Despite having such an illustrious library of classic cartoons, Tom and Jerry remain their most well-regarded work, with over 161 shorts produced throughout the duo's 27-year run and having scored seven Academy Awards under their furry belts. 

  Tom and Jerry remain a staple of childhoods, revered as classic cartoons and having an everlasting appeal to new generations. With the duo's little usage of dialogue, they were easy to transmit to European audiences, as the emphasis was on slapstick humor, funny sound effects, and music. It's easy to see how the duo has an immeasurable legacy, still able to entertain new audiences and making them laugh time and time again. Sadly, there will always be a soulless movie made by a studio that doesn't understand the material, ready to be shat out to theaters before being savaged by movie critics and longtime fans.

  From the mid-90s to the early-10s, there was a trend where many big Hollywood studios would take classic cartoons from the 60s and 80s, most of them being from Hanna-Barbera, and turn them into live-action movies with increasingly terrible results. We got cinematic monstrosities like The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), and Dragonball: Evolution (2009), heralded as one of the worst movies ever made. [Side note: Dragonball: Evolution was very loosely based on the anime and manga series Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama.]. Tom and Jerry's premise centers around the duo searching for a place to live in New York City, eventually arriving at a luxurious hotel that's serving as a venue for the biggest wedding of the year. At the same time, we have Kayla (Chloe Grace Möretz), who applies and lands a job at the hotel and helps organize the event while also enlisting Tom to help rid the hotel of Jerry to ensure the wedding goes through without any mishaps. The film stars Michael Peña as Terence Mendoza, the hotel's event manager, Rob Delaney as the general manager, Ken Jeong as the hotel's ill-tempered chef, Pallavi Sharda, and Colin Jost as Preeta and Ben, the couple hosting their wedding at the hotel. It also includes a voice cast that includes Bobby Cannavale as Spike and Nicky Jam as Butch. 

  Judging by that plot description, you might ask yourself, "Why does this sound like a low-grade live-action movie that would be released back in 2010?" Well, distinguished reader, you are not wrong in that regard, for it all makes sense when you find out that this movie was in development hell since 2009. After the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks, plans for a Tom and Jerry movie went through at Warner Bros, with the film initially envisioned as a live-action/computer-animated feature in the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which would have followed the duo's origins in a Chicago backdrop. Dan Lin would have served as a producer, having worked on Sherlock Holmes, The Lego Movie, and IT (2017); it kind of makes you wonder what it could have been. In 2015, the live-action/animation concept was dropped in favor of a full-on animated feature, which would have stayed true to the MGM shorts before it was changed back to the live-action/animation film we see today. 

  Once the trailer for this movie dropped, it was clear was nothing to be excited about, given that it got made by a studio that was out of touch with the moviegoing public. Filled to the brim with hip hop tunes, a needless cast of celebrities, and an overabundance of product placement and pop culture references, it wasn't hard to see how the final result would turn out. But what sealed the film's demise was the director helming it, Tim Story, who had previously directed Fantastic Four (2005) and Ride Along (2014). My substantially low expectations were subverted once the movie opened, to foreseen negative reviews from critics and fans alike, with many citing the film to be dead on arrival, populated with uninspired characters, a lazy setup, and an overall disservice to the duo's untouchable legacy. 

  It's easy to see why this movie received the critical beatdown it was destined to receive, as I had no faith in the project being anything but good, a sentiment I feel was prevalent with longtime fans of the duo. It's the same studio that squeezed this franchise dry by releasing half a million direct-to-video movies of questionable quality, making many fans yearn for the shorts of the Gene Deitch era. It doesn't help that it had been written by someone who had no prior screen credits to his name, which gives me the impression that he had not seen a Tom and Jerry short in his life, and I'm starting to suspect that this script had been written ten years ago and was left on a freezer for too long. 

  The movie doesn't center around Tom and Jerry for the majority of its runtime, taking a backseat to focus on Kayla, who manages to score a position at the Royal Gate Hotel by using a stolen resumé from someone who was lining up for a job interview. I found it hard to believe that the general manager was stupid enough to believe that a young woman at that age would have all that experience under her belt. All it takes is for the general manager to make one phone call, and that's it, but I digress from any further discussions. It's a clear example of the character that fakes their way to the top until their facade is exposed and later redeem themselves by undoing the damage they caused. This is a clear example of the "Don't pretend to be something you are not" moral, a moral that a movie like Rango (2011) handled a dozen times better.

  It's strange to see Tom and Jerry serve as second-hand characters to a movie that bears their names in the title. Instead, the movie centers around generally lifeless and prosaic characters with nothing worth investing in. Chloe Grace Möretz feels out of place in this movie, and it shows very well that she much rather be in anything else than this movie. She gave so little of a shit that she didn't even bother keeping the character's Brooklyn accent throughout the film. The other cast members aren't any better either, as Michael Peña and Ken Jeong apply no effort to be anything but funny in this movie. We've seen Peña dominate the screen as an excellent supporting actor, and Ken Jeong has been funny in many movies he's been on before. But something tells me that they knew this movie wasn't worth the hassle, so they ultimately phone in their performances and hope for the best. The only one who seems to apply any effort is Rob Delaney himself, who knows he's in a low-cut kids movie and makes the most out of his screentime, hamming it up as the general manager and having fun with the role. 

  And here we have the couple hosting their wedding at the hotel: Preeta and Ben. Ben tries everything to ensure he and his fiancé have the most lavish and sumptuous Bollywood-style wedding imaginable. Yet, Preeta wants to have a wedding with her fiancé without all the extravagance stuffed into it. Here we have another moral in this movie, the moral of "Money can't buy love and happiness," a moral that movies like The Great Gatsby and It's a Wonderful Life handled dozens of times better than this movie did. 

  The movie is full of pop culture references and product placement, with scenes that involve hip hop songs sung by animated pigeons, with cringe-inducing results, and a plethora of rehashed humor we've seen before so many times. The usual slapstick humor associated with Tom and Jerry feels stale, with its use in this movie throughout becoming very old rather quickly. I do have to give credit to Tim Story for having the duo remain silent throughout this movie, well, most of the time at least, with Tom at one point trying to woo a female cat named Toots by playing the piano and singing an R&B song, which is off-putting so to speak. The animation on the characters looks top-notch, faithfully recreating the character design from the MGM shorts, even if they don't blend very well with the human environments or look convincing enough when they interact with the human characters. 

  This movie reminds me of another film based on beloved performers from the 20th century that remains acclaimed by historians and audiences alike. The Three Stooges (2012) is a movie, based on the trio of the same name from the 1930s and 1940s. While they weren't animated characters, the trio shared the same penchant for slapstick and physical comedy that Tom and Jerry are famous for doing. Although the Three Stooges reboot wasn't a masterpiece by any means, it is certainly better than the Tom and Jerry movie, as the Farrelly brothers have respect for the Three Stooges and their everlasting legacy as comedy legends. The actors who portrayed the Stooges were very spot-on, paying homage to the original stooges and carrying the spirit of the Columbia Pictures shorts, even if the movie was a bit of a mess. Nevertheless, it was a love letter to one of Old Hollywood's most revered comedy acts and one that actually made me laugh throughout. 

  I had asked myself a question that for sure most critics and longtime fans had been thinking about after having seen this movie, "Who is this movie for?". It certainly doesn't appeal to the adults who grew up watching the shorts as kids or any longtime fans for that matter; kids who either have seen the shorts or haven't seen them will most likely dismiss this movie and move on to something else. There have been many kids' movies that have persevered as classics, destined to be enjoyed by not just only kids, but adults alike, and some of them can appeal to both demographics alike. Movies like Shrek (2001), Up (2009), Toy Story (1995), Your Name. (2016), Coraline (2009), and Wreck-It Ralph (2012) are ones I can watch time and time again, ones that will remain revered for many years to come, and even be seen as classics in the years that will follow. Tom and Jerry stand as a testament that classic cartoons of its kind don't need movies at all; they are perfect just the way they are, having an inestimable legacy that no matter how many trash live-action movies they get or half a dozen direct-to-video movies, they will withstand the test of time and endure as classics, entertaining a new generation of audiences to come. 

Rest in Peace Eugene "Gene" Merrill Deitch (1924-2020) 

No copyright infringement is intended with the use of these images. All images used belong to their respective authors, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Sources used include Tom and Jerry (2021), TV tropes, and Tom and Jerry shorts (1940-1958).