Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) - A Weird Way to Make a Movie Featuring an Iconic Duo

 

When it comes to iconic cartoons of the golden age, according to Wikipedia being from 1928 until 1972, which seems way to broad because that covers the rise of theatrical animation, television animation, Computer animation and just barely reaches the release of Pong, but regardless, in the era of theatrical shorts, there were many iconic names, Walt Disney, Termite Terrace, Fleischer Studios, and probably one of the most iconic, Hanna-Barbera. Though Tom and Jerry was an MGM property, they will forever be linked to the two men who brought television animation into the mainstream. Their form of comedy was not as well written as Looney Tunes, but more cartoony than a standard Disney cartoon, making Tom and Jerry icons in animation for years to come. Like most icons in animation, it was only a matter of time before they got their own movie, but these two work best with slapstick comedy and little to no dialogue, how can a movie around these two work?

I'm actually not the biggest Tom and Jerry fan, I do enjoy the shorts but I don't really go out of my way to watch them. I think to my favourite shorts from the Looney Tunes and remember just how brilliant the writing was and how well the characters worked off each other, or Goofy cartoons and remember some of the satire on American culture, and all I can really think about Tom and Jerry is how good the slapstick is, and it is very good slapstick, but I do tend to gravitate towards the better written comedy. Then again, a movie may be what this series needed, cinematic writing could make the slapstick even funnier, so does the iconic duo work in a theatrical setting?

The plot follows Tom and Jerry as they wander the streets after being left behind as their owners move house, or is it just owner? Doesn't matter, this part of the movie is almost completely silent, has a decent background track and works alright, it's not a particularly funny segment, but once the movie gets going it should get better right? Well, then they come across a little orphaned girl who is running away from her awful Aunt, this is in a Tom and Jerry movie. Okay, giving the benefit of the doubt that this was all necessary for a Tom and Jerry movie to function, that a human character with a problem for Tom and Jerry to assist with was the only way this movie could work, a little girl trying to avoid her awful guardian and look for her lost father is probably the last thing I would think of for a Tom and Jerry movie plot, it flows alright, but the plot is just flawed from the ground level.

The biggest thing a lot of people will bring up is the fact that Tom and Jerry actually speak in this movie. This is a problem because Tom and Jerry were mostly silent characters, though Tom did have some dialogue on occasion, but when that happened it was predominately to emphasize a joke. It's not like a movie with silent characters can't be done, or even characters that speak incomprehensibly, but there is a lot of effort that needs to be put into a movie like that. On top of that I really don't think Richard Kind works as the voice of Tom, he doesn't get the screams right, and it just doesn't sound right coming out of Tom's mouth, which you think would be a problem with the fact that the characters are speaking, but Jerry's voice is a bit closer to how I would imagine Jerry would sound. This was the final film role for the late Dana Hill, and while her voice does make Jerry sound very young, it does work better than Richard King as Tom. To be fair, the rest of the voice acting is okay, my only other problem is with Tony Jay who sounds like he's doing a Vincent Price impression.

On the topic of vocal performances, this movie is also a musical. I'll be honest, the songs are not great, but they aren't the worst I've heard. A big part of that is because of the music by Henry Mancini, who also did the music for The Great Mouse Detective. While I don't really like the songs, they are memorable, and the music is well-done, it's just a shame that they aren't all sung the best, or the best written. Which is similar to what can be said about the animation, it's not the worst and does bring the classic characters into the modern age visually, it's just a shame that some of the shots look weird and the editing is not the best. On top of that, the actual slapstick in the movie just does not hit as well as it should, we never see any of the characters morph to show the impact of the hit, or the slapstick itself is just very light and basic.  This movie doesn't work as a slapstick comedy, and it doesn't really work as an exciting adventure.

On some level, I can kind of respect the choices they made for this movie. I can imagine that the idea of making a movie starring Tom and Jerry was difficult from the get-go and a lot of tough choices had to be made, but on the other hand not a lot of those choices really work. It fails as a slapstick because the actual slapstick is not very good, it fails as an exciting adventure because it's Tom and Jerry these two things just should not go together. On the one hand you have Peanut Butter, the other hand has jalapeños, I mean with the right amount of each you probably could get something good, but when you throw them together without much thought as to how it would all work, you're going to get something bad, and yeah, this movie is bad, but I would not go as far as to say it's awful, it kind of harkens back to my thoughts on the Felix the Cat movie, where if you're a big fan of Tom and Jerry, you're probably going to despise this movie a lot more, but even if you aren't it still is not a good movie, stick with the classic shorts.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) - A Cute and Comfortable Viewing Experience

 

October was a bit more packed than I anticipated, so apologies for the late review but I did not have the chance to really watch anything, when that happens I think it is just easiest to put on a comfort movie, a movie that might not be great, it might not even be good, but you have watched it so many times, and every time you do it just brings you a certain amount of joy that not even your favourite movies really match, easily my favourite comfort movies are The Muppet Chirstmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, but I think I should talk about a movie prior to the 1980s, not that I have not looked at any movie from before that time this year, but it has been leaning more towards more recent movies, movies from 1990 onwards, so I figured today, let's take a look at one of my other favourite comfort movies, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which I do have to call it that to distinguish it from the 2011 movie, simply titled Winnie the Pooh, is an interesting movie in the Disney Animated Canon. Technically, this qualifies as a package film. Disney's package films were mostly part of their war-time era output, where the films did not really have much of a narrative and were just a bunch of shorter films and ideas strung together. I've looked at two of these movies prior, The Three Caballeros sort of qualifies as it is kind of a similar idea, but does have some semblance of a central theme, of course the first movie I reviewed for this blog was also one of the package films, Fun and Fancy Free, neither of those movies were great, but not absolutely awful. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a compilation of the three Winnie the Pooh shorts released prior, "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree", "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day", and "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too". I'll talk about each short briefly before talking about the big picture as a whole.

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree is the classic Pooh bear story, Pooh wants honey, he can't get honey, he goes to have lunch with Rabbit and plugs up his doorway. I think this is the story everyone is familiar with. A couple interesting things to note is that Piglet is nowhere to be seen in this story. Rather, a new character, Gopher, is introduced, not being from the original books. Regardless, it is still a cute little story. This is followed by Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which is also a cute story and we are introduced to Piglet, Tigger and the Heffalumps and Woozles in this short. It is also a more memorable short with Tigger's introduction jungle, the Heffalumps and Woozles nightmare and Piglet flying like a kite. I do think that Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too is the weakest of the shorts, I dunno I just remember not liking it as much as a kid. Maybe it was just that I didn't like seeing people be sad, I dunno. I like the start of it with Rabbit trying to lose Tigger in the woods, only to end up being lost himself, but still, this is probably my least favourite short of the three.

In between shorts are, I'm assuming new segments to tie them together. These are mostly with Pooh and the narrator talking. These are actually quite cute little bits of fourth-wall breaking. There is also the ending, which isn't some big song number or major emotional moment. It is still an emotional moment, but it is a more subtle one, one that isn't really direct about how the audience should be feeling. Is it a sweet moment between Pooh and Christopher? Is it a sad moment? Is it both, is it neither? I think moments like this are important for children's films because emotions are complex, so it is important to know that it is okay to not know how you feel, or how you're supposed to feel. While I don't think it is one of the best endings to a Disney movie, Monsters Inc. still has my vote for that, I can say it is a good one.

I think what really makes this movie work though is that, it is just a nice warm, fuzzy, comfortable watch. It's not like there aren't any major stakes, but the major stuff does not last for very long, and it resolves satisfactory, this movie is not an episode of Arthur or one of the Franklin specials, it doesn't have major emotional issues that the characters have to deal with, but it's not all sugary-fluff minor issues either. I brought this up before, but the characters do have to be believable for the plot, like you wouldn't see Winnie the Pooh deal with the sensitive topic of Cancer, and it felt really weird that they used the characters to discuss the topic of Stranger Danger. The conflicts in this movie do seem like conflicts these characters are more fit to deal with. On top of that, the characters are just so comforting to watch, they mostly embody one trait, Eeyore is pessimistic, Owl is narcissistic, Piglet is timid, but these characters work of each other so well. It's kind of like Fraggle Rock, on their own the characters are fine, but they work the best when they're together. It also helps that their voices are perfectly cast, no offense to Jim Cummings, but Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell will always be Pooh and Tigger in my mind.

To top it all off is the animation and music. This was the era where Disney's art style looked a bit sketchier, and while I can see some people not liking it too much, I think this is the movie where the style works the best. It looks like an animated children's book, which is perfect because this movie is pretty much an animated children's book. plus the colours are easy on the eyes, there are not too many animation errors, and while there is reused animation, and it is pretty obvious, it isn't egregious, the worst example is the reversed animation during the ballet dance part of the Heffalumps and Woozles sequence. Speaking of which, the songs in this movie are wonderful, I mean, they're Sherman Brothers songs, and these guys pretty much laid the groundwork for modern Disney musicals. Alan Menken, Elton John and Tim Rice, Lin-Manuel Miranda, they're all continuing a path that the Sherman Brothers refined.

So while I can't argue that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is one of the greatest movies in the animated canon, I mean when you're putting it up to movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Fox and the Hound, Treasure Planet, Encanto and Fantasia, yeah, it is not going to hold much water, but I don't think it wants to. I think this movie was what it was, a cute and charming little movie that everyone can get behind. It's simple enough for children, but has some subtle complexities that adults can really get into. I mean, there are people who could talk about the complex simplicity and the simple complexities of Winnie the Pooh, heck, someone wrote an entire book explaining Taoism through Winnie the Pooh. It's hard to not really recommend this movie, I do consider it mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to go into art, animation, filmmaking or storytelling, so while it is not an exceptional movie, I do think it is a worthwhile one.