Top Cat

A new police chief unhinged and unhappy with officer Dibble frames Top Cat. Top Cat goes against his most craziest foe.

Hanna-Barber's prime time animated television star Top Cat returns in his very own movie. Where as Yogi Bear (2010) was put in a real environment and had an awful CGI makeover, makers of Top Cat thankfully stick close to his animation roots. The New York computer backgrounds plates have a hyper-real feel with the characters and gang a 2D flash-animated style similar to Dexter's Laboratory. 

Opening with the original styled Top Cat theme and a rework of the opening tricks and scams it oozes nostalgia. It has all the fun of the original cartoons albeit a little stilted at times. Choo-Choo, Brain, Benny, Spook, Fancy-Fancy and Officer Dibble are all present and correct even if Dibble is a little lighter here.

Packed with cons, robot police, gags, quips Top Cat is still the leader of the gang.

Definitely the worse film of the year and struggling to think of one ever. I was a massive TC fan when I was little so was excited at being able to take my 2 boys to go and see the film. Really wish I hadn't bothered. In the interest of fairness I should point out I watched the 2D version so the 3D version may be slightly better if this was done well but based on the rest of the film I doubt it. No story and terrible animation, do yourself and your children a favour and spend your money on something else. If people go and watch this rubbish then the film companies will continue to churn out this dross knowing that parents will still take their kids.

Took my 4 year old to watch this today, he loves going the pictures, as do i. This was awful, so boring my boy wouldn't sit still through it and couldn't wait for it to finish, all i can say is i was happy to leave. Wouldn't sit through it again, even if it was free. We didn't laugh once, barely even smiled. Most of the children in there didn't seam to happy with it either. It just felt like a extra long episode of top cat. All in all spent about £40.00 to watch something that neither of us enjoyed or will remember. Asked my little boy if he enjoyed it he said "it was OK, but i don't want to see it again" for him who watches the same cartoon over and over again says it all.

This movie has really a really rough beginning that might make most people stop wanting to watch it, but if you sit through it to the end, you'll probably get some mileage out of it.

The first 20 minutes resemble an episode of a basic 70's TV show redone for the CGI era. Here we're introduced to all the characters. Don Gato (Top Cat) is an unethical scoundrel of an alley cat who's the leader and smartest member of a group of other extremely dim petty criminal cats.

There's Officer Matuto, the police officer who wants to keep order, a female cat who is the love interest, and the villain who's simply a caricature of an ugly and neurotic man who is also very vain.

Don Gato goes through a CGI New York City obstacle course, meets a really dumb dog who fights with him, flirts inappropriately with the female cat, and then tries to rob jewels from a rich guy while Matuto tries to catch him.

The film then jarringly transitions into a very elementary apocalyptic science fiction, reusing the characters from the first part. Matuto wants to become chief of police but his position is usurped by the the villain from the first part who is now a technocrat and the female cat from the first part is his secretary. Although Don Gato met all these characters by happenchance at the beginning of the film, they happen to become extremely important to his life. Coincidences, coincidences.

The second part is a really elementary apocalyptic satire about the villain trying to take over the city (or world?) with police robots made in china. I think the first part was made to appeal to original viewers and the second part was meant to bring in new viewers by appealing to more current trends.

This part has some really funny jokes and poignant social critiques, but it's all seeped in playground comedy and I can't say that everything is funny or clever.

Stock happy resolution with every favourable character getting rewarded and every bad character getting his comeuppance.

If you have to sit through it, you'll probably find it mildly entertaining and it's more adventurous than a typical US film (I think it's actually a Mexican film), but it's nothing special.

Honourable Mentions: Recess: School's Out (2001) Like Don Gato, which is about larcenous alley cats and becomes an apocalyptic AI movie, Recess: The Movie also starts out with an equally humble roster of elementary school students on the playground and it expands to become a government conspiracy action thriller.

I watched this film a few times growing up, but I only remembered small snippets. Years later, I rewatched it, and found that it wasn't quite as good as I remembered. Apparently Top Cat was big in Mexico and this film was how they hoped to give him a modern comeback. The characters are 2D but the backgrounds are these odd 3D models that look ripped from a video game.

The plot is a mix of by the numbers and illogical. The idea that Top Cat's simple con methods won't work in the modern digital world is an interesting idea, but the combination of the whiny villain Strickland's dream of a totalitarian police state doesn't quite land well. The robots were very out of place indeed!

Whilst the writing was overall weak, the humour had its high points. Some of it is too cheesy or bizarre, but a few of the jokes did land (I don't know if they fit the series' style or not but they were funny). The voice acting of the cast was decent and emulated the original well (minus the one cat with the 'dude bro' accent). Officer Dibble was the best character, but that's to be expected.

Ultimately, this is one of those films that wasn't quite as good as I remembered, but it still had small bits. Hopefully the show gets a proper revival one day.