REVIEW: Tom & Jerry: The Movie Entertains With Dynamic Animation, Tries But Falls Short on Total Inclusivity, Visually Lacking Females in the Michelin Chef’s Kitchen and a Black Female Voice on Camera in New York City

There seems to be a trend happening lately where studios want to turn classic cartoons from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, like Tom & Jerry: The Movie, into live-action movies. Few studios actually do it justice though. Only a few come to mind that were well done like Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, and The Jungle Book. The movie is directed by Tim Story, written by Kevin Costello, and stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Peña, Ken Jeong, Jordan Bolger, Rob Delaney, Pallavi Sharda, and Colin Jost.

There are lots of Black nuances like the music and slang used by everyone, but there’s not one Black female that has any prominent speaking role, which was noticeably missing. It’s NYC after all so they should have had a Black female speaking role in there as well. We have so much love for the Indian wedding as that’s inclusive, but we were saddened that they used mostly Black music, but didn’t give a Black woman an actual voice on camera.

The Black female role could have been cast as a sous chef since the hotel boasted that it had a Michelin-starred restaurant. In fact, we didn’t see one female in the all-male kitchen scenes. It would have spoken volumes even if they had cast a non-speaking role in the kitchen, which could have broken a stereotype or two.

All that being said, the animation itself was well done and the Tom and Jerry scenes were fun and hilarious aside from making Jerry a thief, which he was never like that in the original cartoons so why start now. Tom & Jerry: The Movie starts out with both characters in the city. All Tom wants to be is a musician and he pretends to be a blind musician in the beginning until Jerry exposes him as a fraud.

Tom chases Jerry all the way to the Royal Gate Hotel, knocking Kayla off her bike along the way. She loses her other job and at the hotel is where we see Kayla, played by Chloë Grace Moretz, is back for a free meal. She finds out the hotel is hiring a temporary event manager and tricks Linda Perrybottom into thinking she’s hiring for the hotel and that her assumptions were wrong and she wasn’t right for the job.

Kayla keeps Linda’s resume and passes it off as her own and is brought up immediately to see the hotel GM, Mr. Dubros (Rob Delaney), who is wowed by her. Terence (Michael Peña), the event manager, is less than thrilled with her, in fact, he tries to get her to slip up several times, but she never flinches.

Meanwhile, Tom is harassed by the alley cats outside the hotel but manages to whistle for animal control and gets them taken away just in the nick of time. Jerry is inside the hotel planning his room. Kayla is hiring for Ben and Preeta’s (Colin Jost and Pallavi Sharda) wedding. They’re NYC’s elite celeb couple, but we don’t know how they met, or what makes them famous at all. I’m thinking reality TV, or NYC royalty as her father seems like he might be wealthy, but it’s never said in the movie.

While walking through the hotel, Terence tells Kayla that the hotel has been open since 1932 and has played hosts to kings and queens, and Drake. They have 260 rooms, 21 suites, never have a thread count below an 800 thread count and a top-of-the-line spa. Jerry has since made his home inside the hotel and even makes Chef Jackie’s son, and sous chef, faint. Chef Jackie is the hotel’s premier chef played by Ken Jeong. Kayla says she’ll take care of the problem discreetly. Kayla tries to catch Jerry on her own but fails, and in one instance is distracted by Cameron (Jordan Bolger), who plays the bartender, whom she’s smitten with. Jerry leaves Kayla a note when she’s not paying attention telling her she needs a better trap and leaves her some money in the trap where the cheese used to be. Kayla then has the bright idea, after catching Tom in a room destroyed by their hilarious cat and mouse antics, to hire Tom temporarily to catch Jerry. Cat and mouse seem like a natural fit and Mr. Dubros agrees. Terence is less than enthused. 

It’s Joy, the bellhop who creeps up on everyone, that tells Kayla about the tiny door on the 10^th floor. Jerry won’t go quietly though and before she can finish talking to the mouse she’s called to the bridal suite. It’s in there that Terence and Kayla drop off the presents, but Preeta asks Terence to take Spike, her dog, for a walk and keeps Kayla behind for some bridal stuff, which isn’t the truth. The truth is she lost her ring and needs help finding it. The viewer instantly realizes it has to be Jerry who has it, and before Kayla can get it from him, Tom sets up an elaborate mousetrap, and this time catches Jerry and sending him packing, quite literally. That doesn’t last long though as Jerry comes back quickly and wants revenge. Jerry wants to stay and tells Kayla he’ll give it to her if she lets him stay. They don’t finish their convo though as there’s a dog, cat, and mouse chase between Spike, Tom, and Jerry, all the way from the lobby to the elevator and to the ceiling, which they crash through causing a ton of damage. Mr. Dubros actually thinks Terence needs a break, and Kayla is promoted up to temporary event manager. 

Kayla tells Tom and Jerry they can stay if they can get along for a day together. Their day goes well until Tom catches a ball at Yankee Stadium, which could have been the game-winning ball. They’re taken away by animal control and it’s in there we see the alley cats again who tells Tom to eat Jerry. He tries, but then they’re rescued, sort of, by Terence who has his own plans. He pits the two against each other and it’s at Ben and Preeta’s wedding where all hell breaks loose. 

At the hotel, Ben and Preeta’s wedding seems to be going swimmingly, at least for Ben. Preeta never wanted any of it, the elephants, the tiger, the selfie drones, she wanted none of it, but they forgot how to fight, and she forgot to use her voice. After the wedding is ruined by Tom and Jerry, Preeta tells Ben the wedding is off, but it’s not because of the antics, though that didn’t help. It’s because she never wanted an elaborate wedding.

Kayla is let go and Terence gets his job back. Tom and Jerry are back out on the streets but find their way back to Kayla and Cameron and with their help in getting Preeta back from her car that’s currently on the way to JFK, they salvage the wedding by having a small wedding in Central Park. Joy, who seems to constantly pop up out of nowhere, is the one who suggested the perfect wedding place.

The wedding happens and ends with Kayla introducing Mr. Dubros to the real Linda Perrybottom (Camilla Arfwedson) who Terence is instantly attracted to, and Mr. Dubros even gives Kayla another shot, giving everyone their happy ending.

While Tom & Jerry: The Movie misses some marks, it’s still a delightful slapstick comedy that will bring back childhood memories, and a perfect movie to watch with your little ones. Stream it now on HBO Max or watch it in theaters.