Skip to main content

Tom and Jerry review – wearisome live action adaptation

Lazy writing mars this update of the cat and mouse feud

The long-running feud between cat and smart-aleck mouse gets a new platform in this feature-length adaptation of the Hanna Barbera cartoon. The backdrop is a swanky Manhattan hotel, which is set to host the wedding of the year. The approach, a marriage of cluttered live action with madcap 2D animation, owes an obvious debt to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but has more in common with the wearisome and unfunny Garfield: The Movie. Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Kayla, an opportunist who cons her way into a job using a stolen résumé. It’s astute casting – Moretz’s habitually overblown acting style seems slightly less jarring when juxtaposed with rampaging cartoon elephants. The film is most entertaining when it wreaks havoc – a car chase involving a commandeered military drone is a slickly executed riot. But lazy writing squashes any real fun as emphatically as an Acme anvil dropped from a roof.

• Available on all platforms

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fkNmKh

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Degrees of separation: what connects Seinfeld to Steve Bannon?

From the US sitcom to the far-right rabble rouser, we go down the rabbit hole, thanks to the arrival of Jerry’s show on Netflix Seinfeld All 180 episodes of the 90s’ most misanthropic sitcom have arrived on Netflix, but not everyone is happy. Some viewers have complained that the new transfer puts Jerry Seinfeld ’s show in a different aspect ratio: from an older square format to widescreen … yada-yada … now the picture crops out some sight gags and just seems slightly bizarro . Motion impossible: fallout It’s not the first time modern technology has caused problems. HD TVs can make even visually stunning films look like cheap soap operas, through motion smoothing – a process to reduce blurring (good for on-screen sport). But Tom Cruise was there to save the day: in a slightly awkward 2018 video , he explained how to adjust TV settings to undo this flat fiasco. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3mr722c