Matinee Mouse

After years and years of feuding, Tom and Jerry decide to wave the white flag and call a truce. With that, they head off to the movie theater, which just happens to be showing their classic cartoons. And that's all it takes for them to start up the fight all over again.

Tom and Jerry creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera got the director's credit for this even though it was released in 1966, and they hadn't actually made a T&J cartoon since 1958. I think that's only because about 75% of this cartoon consists of clips from the Hanna & Barbera period, and you're better off watching those any day. I'm going to be generous and give this a five out of ten, but like I said, that's generous.

After yet another round of cat and mouse games, Tom and Jerry decide to knock it on the head and just go and catch a movie together. Easily getting into a screening of Tom & Jerry classic cartoons, they sit and relive the old times together. Or rather, and let me just be cynical here, a very average piece of animation is used to frame a couple of re-runs in order to stretch out a series that had long since passed it best.

For this mix, it is impossible to say there is nothing of value here but it is just hard to enjoy because it is such a cynical and uninspired clips show – nothing more than that. The animation in the 1966 part is poor and it is made to look even weaker when the 'classic' moments come on and look a lot better. To be fair, I suppose the clips might have been funnier than I allowed them to be because I was a little put off by the way they were being used in this way. Certainly the early, original stuff is poor in terms of animation and the material – and the constant cutting back to the cinema setting is unappreciated.

Overall this is a cynical ploy and it is one that it is better to just ignore and avoid. The 'classic clips' are OK but their frame is really poor and it takes away from the better material. A weak and annoying cartoon that I struggled to make it through the 6 minutes it lasted.

After much fighting, Tom and Jerry declare a truce and go to the cinema to catch some of their classic capers. What follows is one of those lazy compilation cartoons consisting of clips from earlier shorts, interspersed with scenes of T&J fighting in the theatre, the pair having fallen out once more.

What Matinée Mouse succeeds very well in doing is make it abundantly clear just how far the series has sunk over the decades, the wonderfully detailed and smoothly animated Hanna-Barbera classics so much better than Chuck Jones' scrappy offerings.

As some people might know already from my other reviews, I am a big Tom and Jerry fan. I loved their cartoons as a child, and I still do, as they are very funny with likable characters. However, I have to say some of their cartoons have been disappointments, not the Hanna-Barbera cartoons a vast majority of those are classics, I am primarily talking about those Gene Dietch cartoons, which were poorly animated complete with sickening violence and stomach-churning sound effects. As for the Chuck Jones cartoons, they have their ups and downs, unfortunately Matinée Mouse for me is among the weakest of the batch, and admittedly I prefer the Looney Tunes cartoons that Jones directed/produced.

Matinée Mouse is very uneven, of course it is nowhere near as horrible as the Gene Dietch monstrosities(ie. Switchin' Kitten, I have been very vocal before about how much I hate that one), but I couldn't help thinking not only that it should have been better but it was somewhat unnecessary as well. The music is okay if nothing special and the presence of Tom and Jerry elevate. However, the best thing about Matinée Mouse is the clips of those classic Hanna-Berbera cartoons, spotting them alone was a great delight.

However, these clips are much better than the cartoon itself, and this was a similar problem I had with Shutter Bugged Cat, which was plot less and unfunny on the whole. The animation is not great at all, lacking in vibrancy and colour in the cinema setting, and while the Hanna-Barbera cartoons are beautifully animated, they were given very insipid treatment here. The pacing is off, it drags at first and then feels rushed, while the story is very routine and Tom and Jerry's antics in the cinema get very tiresome in the end, at one point it was the same thing over and over it felt. Overall, disappointing, uneven and lacklustre, see for the clips mainly if little else. 4/10 Bethany Cox