Director: Gang Zhang
Writers: Gang Shang
Stars: Li Baixin, Mino Eek, Zhang Gang
Synopsis: During a chase inside a museum, Tom and Jerry find a magical object and end up being transported through time. Lost in a distant era, they will need to work together to find a way back home.
Rarely does a film gobsmack me for the completely wrong reasons. I grew up watching Tom and Jerry with my grandmother and I didn’t hate the 2021 Tom and Jerry film (which was largely panned). All to say, that at the very least, the slapstick comedy of Tom and Jerry is just enough to keep me engaged and all of the extra stuff is supplemental. Fast forward to last Tuesday, August 25th – my editor questioned why no one was reviewing this film. Hell, while not his real name, we have a guy whose bit with InSession is that he “talks about the toons” and goes by ‘Toontalks’ – and not even he wished to take on this film. Which should’ve been a sign, but blinded by the hopes of something remotely decent or enjoyable, I foolishly entered the AMC in Times Square this morning; which was one of the very few theaters showing this movie on opening day – another sign. What I was hoping for was slapstick, and even if the narrative wasn’t all there I’d cut it some slack for kooky cat and mouse antics. Instead Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass is what I believe was a kindergarten teacher’s Benadryl fever dream after accidentally leaving the Boomerang channel on (derogatory).
One thing I didn’t anticipate was that Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass is a Chinese production and would also be the first completely CG Tom and Jerry film. The director has no previous work that I could find, and I don’t know who at Warner Bros gave the greenlight for this to be made. Before even getting into the movie itself, I am perplexed at how this thing exists. Were there local or international tax incentives that made this a favorable production? I can assure you no compelling script was made for this film to be made. Whatever it is, nothing about this film is redeemable to have drug the Tom and Jerry brand through the mud. I wouldn’t even call it dragging through the mud, this film doesn’t deserve to be in the same sentence as mud. You can call bad movies as ‘catering to the lowest common denominator’, ‘bottom of the barrel’, ‘slop’, or any variation of that, but Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass boldly goes past that into an unknown territory. We are in levels of bad whose description could not be used by the verbiage we have now; my guess would be that lingo was lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria or is used by an alien species we have yet to meet.
The pace of this film is unsustainable to any viewer anywhere, even people whose attention span has been shot by TikTok AI fruit videos or 20 second clips of television shows with a narrator dryly describing the scene couldn’t follow this nonsense. The production company crawl at the start of the film sprints and by the time you can collect yourself Tom and Jerry are chasing each other around The Met in NYC. Then yada yada yah, poopity scoopity poo, they go back in time to ancient China and tweedledy weedledy dumb, humpty dumpty doo they somehow get involved with whatever the hell is happening. I’m not here to speak to the plot points or logic of a children’s movie, but there is absolutely nothing to glean from this movie. The whiplash the viewer has by the end of this movie is as severe as the car accident I had in 2015 where my 2001 Ford Taurus was completely brutalized. Granted, I know that there are films where the design is to just fire off as many stimulants as possible and as long as your kid is satisfied with the upkick in dopamine then mission accomplished. But Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass feels like an affront to cinema, an affront to your intelligence, and an affront to your children’s mental development.
I have friends with young children, my sisters either have kids or are currently expecting, and in no circumstance would I give these kids this film to watch – not even as a bit. It seems a little silly to derail a children’s movie this much, and there’s almost a guarantee of some random online seeing how much I hate this movie and saying “it’s just a kid’s movie – get over yourself”. Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass is the type of film that would be used in the Ludovico Technique, with your eyes clamped open and body strapped to a chair. The entirety of this review feels a little hyperbolic (and it probably is at times), but you should never subjugate yourself to this trash that is taking away your hard earned money and very important time. It is an absolute travesty that something like this exists.
