Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring (2001)

 

The first of the direct to video Tom and Jerry movies is strong start to this surprisingly long running series of feature length films. 

Like the classic Tom and Jerry short films, this feature has a very simple storyline. Tom is hired to protect a magical ring. However the ring gets stuck to Jerry's head, which leads to a big chase through the city. 

Even with this simple premise the film actually works very well with its feature length. While nothing can quite recapture the magic of the classic short films, this movie is still a lot of fun. This movie is full of fast moving slapstick that keeps you fully engaged for the whole length. There is not one dull moment in the entire film. There are many wonderful comedic set pieces here that easily put a smile on my face. One of my favorites is Jerry wondering how he is going to get the ring off. He looks around at each store around and imagines using what is in each one to get it off, with all of them having disastrous results. What also makes this sequence work is the wonderful choice of having each of Jerry's fantasies have a pure white background. This was a creative idea and it worked beautifully. The scene in the jewelry store is also excellent with plenty of great gags. I especially love Tom using his tail as a mustache as a form of disguise. I also adore Droopy's cameos here. And these are just a couple of the fun gag sequences here. Because of all this the movie's 62-minute runtime flies by really fast and this movie can feel like a short when watching it. 

One visual joke is a reference to the Tex Avery directed cartoon short, Bad Luck Blackie (1949). While of course no one can recapture the brilliant comedic filmmaking of Tex Avery, this gag works well enough in the movie. 

My biggest complaint with this movie is the human characters. They are given dialogue that tries to hard to be funny but is not funny at all. As much as this film has some great slapstick moments this dialogue humor falls flat. The unfunny dialogue humor can even be found in some of the talking animal characters (really only the Droopy scenes works in this regard). Luckily this kind of humor takes a strong backseat to the visual humor which is excellent.

This movie has historical importance for Tom and Jerry fans. It is the last Tom and Jerry project that both William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (who directed the classic Tom and Jerry short films) worked on, as Bill Hanna would die in 2001. This movie's director, James Tim Walker has had a long career in animation working (often as a timing director) on such animated TV shows like Batman: The Animated Series, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, The Looney Tunes Show, Batman: Brave and the Bold, Samurai Jack, Justice League Unlimited and many more, as well as various of the direct to video movies for DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo!. Tim Cahill and Julie McNally are a husband and wife writing team that has worked on such animated TV shows as The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Baby Looney Tunes, Krypto the Superdog, Littlest Pet Shop and The Tom and Jerry Show. 

All in all, this is a really fun movie.