And I really hate to say this because I am a huge fan of Tom and Jerry. I'm fully aware that The Mansion Cat is a "modern" Tom and Jerry, so naturally it wasn't going to be the same. But you do expect and hope that any modern cartoon or whatnot of a classic to actually try to stick to the spirit of that classic. And it was here where The Mansion Cat failed. The good news is that it is not as bad as Gene Deitch's cartoons, at least it isn't sadistic or bizarre. The bad news is that it just wasn't interesting or entertaining for me. For the real deal, I'll stick with the Tom and Jerry cartoons of the 40s and 50s, even the hit-and-miss Chuck Jones output is preferable to this. The animation is certainly bright and colourful, but this is one of those rare occasions where I don't class that as a good thing. The brightness and the colour came across as rather over-saturated, even the Cinemascope Tom and Jerry cartoons weren't as garish to look at, and does nothing to hide the rough and static style of everything else on the visual front. Coming off best is the footage of Muscle Beach Tom, which was interesting, but at the same time I did question whether there was any need for it.
The music was a little bit better, it has more life than the scoring for Jones' cartoons and isn't bizarre for that of Deitch's, but again it is nowhere near as catchy, lusciously orchestrated and above all memorable as MGM/Hanna-Barbera's. The story is incredibly thin and predictable, and sometimes read too much of an appliances advertisement which I in all honesty found really weird, when you're checking and re-checking the credits to see whether you're watching Tom and Jerry you know there's something wrong. As said before, The Mansion Cat is a failure in sticking to the Tom and Jerry spirit, the cartoony slapstick and fast-paced chases are next to nil in quality and impact, while there only seemed to be a couple of gags and they were pitiful attempts at best ruined by everything being forced and timed poorly. Tom and Jerry are a classic duo, but they don't feel or act the same here. They have no spark or likability at all, with the humour severely undermining their talents, reading as being there but with next to nothing that is worthwhile to do.
All in all, really poor, interesting for being the only Tom and Jerry to have closing credits and for the usage of Muscle Beach Tom but other than that it is not worth wasting your time on. 1/10 Bethany Cox
