Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1993)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent but underrated film

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely brilliant

I don't care what anyone thinks of this movie, but I actually enjoyed it. It was really good to see that Tom and Jerry are able to talk, and finally work together which is unusual - I know! The story is good. I really like that little girl, and was supporting her all the way, and I liked the fact that Tom and Jerry was with her. Don't expect too much because this movie was good for what it was. You should just see it, and watch the story unfold. It was a good Tom and Jerry movie.

It is doubtful that there is bigger fan of Tom and Jerry then yours truly. It is also doubtful that there is a bigger detractor of their first (and God willing only) feature film effort. Tom and Jerry fit a 5 minute short because the formula is so unbelievably simple: Tom tries to eat Jerry and Jerry foils the attempt.Trying to expand on that relationship is fatal to the material and only one reason why 'Tom and Jerry: The Movie' doesn't work. After their home is destroyed, the pair discover that they can talk (!) and have to stick together as they set out on the road together.Giving them voices is also fatal because what made the pair so irresistible in the first place was that the only way they communicated with one another was through their altercations. T&J are supplied with rather annoying Sesame Street voices by Spin City's Richard Kind and the late Dana Hill.The violence is gone as well in the face of trying to appear more politically correct. If that isn't bad enough they are saddled with an orphaned girl who is being pursued by her evil aunt and they are given forgettable musical numbers that Disney would have gagged at. Try to imagine The Three Stooges without the comic violence and you have the idea.There isn't even a struggle in the movie for the pair to have to be nice to one another. One of the gems in their library of film shorts is one in which Tom and Jerry and the dog Spike sign a peace treaty and use every fiber of their being to keep from pounding each other to death. The movie hardly needs Tom and Jerry because the story has been done so many times that any two characters could have been inserted with the same results.If it ain't broke . . .

How do you adapt two animated characters from 7-8 minute shorts into an 84 minute movie? There is never an easy solution. Typically it's easier to construct a narrative to entertain and occupy an audience's attention for a few minutes, but when the running time is much longer so must the narrative be. The importance when adapting short film characters for feature films is to keep the original spirit of the characterizations intact, while not forcing the characters far out of their element and having them deviate widely from the original source material. In other words Tom and Jerry: The Movie should not have been the talky, musical buddy-comedy it became. I can understand how the novelty of watching a cat and mouse fight for 84 minutes would eventually wear off; even watching several hours' worth of Tom and Jerry cartoons can eventually become routine, even if they are highly entertaining. This Film Roman production however made too many missteps in an attempt to be different, and instead became an underwhelming experience.Tom and Jerry: The Movie marked the cat and mouse's first and only theatrically released film; made at a time when American traditional animation was rebounding from stagnation, experiencing a classical revival that lasted for most of the 1990s. Originally created for MGM theatrical shorts in the 1940s by William Hannah and Joseph Barbera, they have since gone through multiple iterations with other animation directors and studios, and spawned several spin-off shows and direct-to-DVD movies. Tom and Jerry typically shared a love/hate relationship; Tom would try to destroy Jerry, while Jerry would try and outwit (while painfully humiliating) Tom, though there were some situations where they would help each other if both could benefit from teamwork. What could have been a big hit in 1993 was instead soon forgotten. The movie opened at #14 at the U.S box office, was commercially unsuccessful and mostly a critical failure. Although the movie has some highlights with its 2D art and music score by Henry Mancini, they are largely overshadowed by poor choices in the script and direction, along with many unnecessary and unmemorable songs.Tom and Jerry begin their movie in a suburban home not unlike the ones where they would wreck havoc in the original shorts. This time however, their antics cause their owners to accidentally forget them during their move to a new home. A wrecking ball demolishes the house and Tom and Jerry find themselves wandering the streets. Soon they encounter a dog and flea who are pals, and this is where the film introduces its first big mistake: giving Tom and Jerry voices.Tom and Jerry were originally pantomimes. Up until this movie they had faithfully remained so, even when placed in situations where other characters were communicating with dialogue. Although some of the MGM shorts had Tom talking (though sparingly) in an exaggerated voice, the majority of the acting was done non-verbally, except with the occasional screams of pain emanating from Tom. Screenwriter Dennis Marks had previously worked on the series Tom and Jerry Kids (1990) which primarily led him to work on this movie, and it's unclear whether he or director Phil Roman decided to have Tom and Jerry talk. It's not that Richard Kind and Dana Hill's voice performances are bad, they just don't suit the characters, and giving the title characters voices significantly reduces their non-verbal dramatics. The musical numbers (for which virtually every character has one) further stretches the story which is too thin to last 84 minutes.The biggest problem however comes later, when the movie introduces Tom and Jerry to a girl named Robyn Starling, and a plot that seems heavily inspired by Disney's The Rescuers. By this point Tom and Jerry are now friends thanks to earlier musical numbers, as they are mostly reduced to supporting roles for what unfolds as Robyn's movie. Robyn has run away from her nasty guardian Aunt Figg, who is keeping her as insurance, hoping that her adventuring father doesn't return from an accident in Tibet, so she and her lawyer Lickboot can keep squandering the Starling fortune. Tom and Jerry encounter Aunt Figg's dog, Ferdinand, whose excessive weight forces him to wheel about on a skateboard. This leads to mayhem in the kitchen, and one of the few times Tom and Jerry act like their natural selves. Their destruction leads to their incarceration with a veterinarian who is more of a prison warden than physician, and to a somewhat wasted cameo by another MGM character, that only older, astute animation enthusiasts would have recognized in the movie's initial run, and many kids today probably wouldn't identify him either. Robyn discovers her Aunt's deception and runs away again, and later winds up with a nautically-centric amusement park owner, Captain Kiddie, and his parrot puppet Squawk.With all these supporting characters it's upsetting that none of them are more than mildly interesting, even with the capable voice performers behind them. Their development and motivations are quite shallow, especially the adult humans who are eventually driven by greed once a reward is offered for Robyn Starling's return. Even the quirky but friendly Captain Kiddie with his song about world travel, devolves into a greedy opportunist along with the rest. Once the main plot resolves itself, Tom and Jerry return to their traditional antics, and you wonder why they couldn't have been more like themselves in a shorter running time (as they later would be in direct-to-DVD movies). Instead they were made into supporting characters in their self titled movie, to support a musical buddy comedy, with a plot too reminiscent of a better developed plot from an older Disney title.Tom and Jerry: The Movie has not affected the cat and mouse duo in the long run however, as their continued success on DVD and television has left the 1992 movie as more of a footnote in an otherwise dynamic career, which will likely continue for many years to come.

so the movie starts with unfunny slapstick humor, and as the movie goes on for the first ten minutes you are like: OK, not as funny as the original but it doesn't seem to get worse. and then it came: "i' tom""I' am Jerry" and thats when you yell WHAT! this movie hit me right in my childhood.as for the songs, there are way too many and they aren't that good as not only do they talk, but they sing. as for the plot, it has almost nothing to do with a cat and a mouse. the plot has something to do with a girl trying to find her father. yes, this movie is bad, really bad. the jokes are not funny, the slapstick is not funny.