Before TV animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera struck a Bedrock bonanza and turned cave people into animation's answer to The Honeymooners, they helmed a series of shorts at M-G-M that paired together the most durable team of cat and mouse to ever hit an animation stand. As a little person, I was always on Jerry’s side. His playful, circle-upon-circle Mickey Mouse design and diminutive size made him a little guy worth championing. Once I ran from Tom. Now, while I don’t exactly run to him, I do find myself repulsed by Jerry's bland antagonism. Once the pieces were set in place, it became a one-joke role reversal, with the mouse always outwitting the cat. Not much has changed in this, their first big screen outing in almost 30 years. Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Kayla, an out of work con artist who lands feet first in a temp position at a ritzy New York hotel with a mouse problem. One might expect that two Fantastic Four titles under his belt would have made director Tim Story a master of CGI, and to his credit, the character movement and integration earned points. As did tributes to Golden Era holdovers Spike, Butch, Lightning, Topsy, and Meathead, all given their anthropomorphic due. And humans walking cartoon dogs lend vitality to the background detail. Gone, however, are series favorites Nibbles aka Tuffy, the adorable white mouse who on occasion spoke with a French accent, and jabbering annoyance Yakky Doodle. To no one's surprise, broom-wielding "Mammy Two Shoes,” the stereotypical African-American cleaning woman shown only from the waist down, didn’t make the cut. One hoped that Story might have found a way of smuggling her in, much in the manner Joe Dante did when wondering what to do with a certain politically incorrect stuttering pig and his speedy, but merrily immelodious Mexican co-star in Looney Tunes Back In Action. Unable to carry a feature, the cartoon duo are frequently asked to take a back seat to Moretz and her boss (Michael Peña). Why do the equally sado-masochistic team of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote provide an endless fountain of variation, while Tom and Jerry are content in their inertness, opting as always to place absolute sadism over slapstick style? Like I said, not much has changed. (2021) — Scott Marks