Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2005
Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry
Buy Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| image = Tom and Jerry The Fast and the Furry cover.jpg
| caption = DVD cover
| director = Bill Kopp
| producer = Stephen Fossatti
| screenplay = Bill Kopp
| story = Joseph Barbera
| based_on =
| starring =
| music = Nathan Wang
| editing = Julie Lau
| studio = Turner Entertainment Co.
Warner Bros. Animation
| distributor = Kidtoon Films
Warner Home Video
| released =
| country = United States
| runtime = 75 minutes
| language = English
}}
'Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry' is a 2005 American animated action-adventure comedy film featuring the cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Turner Entertainment Co., it is the third made-for-video 'Tom and Jerry' film. Alongside 'Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars' (also written and directed by Bill Kopp), the release of the film coincided with the 65th anniversary of the cat-and-mouse team's debut in 1940.
'The Fast and the Furry' was first released theatrically in selected cities of the United States by Kidtoon Films on September 3, 2005. The film was then released on both VHS (making it the final Tom and Jerry film to be released in that format) and DVD on October 11, 2005, and on Blu-ray on April 5, 2011.
Plot
Tom and Jerry are evicted from their house by Tom's owner after they destroy it during one of their usual chases. Upon seeing an ad for a race/reality show titled the "Fabulous Super Race" (which offers the winner a luxurious mansion), Tom and Jerry build their customized vehicles from a nearby junkyard before heading to "Globwobbler Studios" in Hollywood, California, to enter themselves in the race.
The other racers include elderly Grammy and her ferocious pet dog Squirty; dark lord and florist Gorthan the Destroyer of Light; superstar Steed Dirkly; single mother of four children Malory "Soccer Mom" McDoogle; and scientist Dr. Professor, eliminated before the race after antimatter accidentally vaporizes him and his vehicle, leaving Tom and Jerry room to race.
The race begins in Hollywood, where Grammy takes an early lead, but Steed overtakes her late in the leg. Upon the racers arriving at the finish line in Mexico, the head of Globwobbler Studios, J.W., decides to extend the race to the Amazonian jungle due to high public ratings. While racing in the Amazonian jungle, Tom cheats by switching a sign indicating the road the racers should take to deceive Jerry, eliminating Soccer Mom as her minivan sinks into quicksand. However, Jerry avoids the same fate with her help. Steed wins again with Grammy following in second, but J.W. still wants to continue due to the high ratings. Hosts Biff Buzzard and Buzz Blister announce that the next leg of the race will begin in Antarctica and that the racers will have to modify their vehicles for ocean travel.
On the way to Antarctica, Steed's vehicle sinks, causing his elimination and death when he encounters a mermaid on a small island, who proceeds to feed him to her ravenous offspring. The first contestant to reach Antarctica is Gorthan, also eliminated after Biff and Buzz goaded him into licking a metal pole. He and his vehicle drifted away on an iceberg as he attempted to free his tongue. As Tom, Jerry, and Grammy arrive, Grammy is eliminated when a whale accidentally swallows her and Squirty, thanks to Tom's machinations. J.W. then notifies the hosts that the racers will have to modify their vehicles again for underwater travel to Australia. While racing underwater, Tom faces several problems. Seals take over his car, and his fish juice spray attracts sharks, ultimately eliminating him when he crashes into a large concrete block and an anchor crushes him.
Upon arriving in Australia, Jerry then continues racing across Australia to Borneo, where the finish line got reassigned. Grammy and Squirty return to the race when the whale spits them out. Tom also returns after Irving rescues him under J.W.'s orders and saws Australia in half to get in the lead.
The next leg of the race involves the racers modifying their vehicles with balloons for air travel to Borneo. While floating in the air, Tom inadvertently pops Grammy's balloons to attack Jerry, resulting in Grammy's elimination once again when she and Squirty fall to their deaths upon bickering over what they thought was a parachute. J.W. then announces that the true final leg of the race is back to Hollywood, which will involve them traveling back to the finishing point with high-speed jet planes in only five minutes due to the race taking too long. Tom and Jerry proceed anyway and race through several prominent locations in Asia, Europe, the Atlantic, and the U.S., causing massive yet comedic destruction to numerous monuments. Their jets crumble and shatter at the finish line, with the two racers now tied.
Although they win because of the tie, J.W. claims that, according to the contract, tiebreakers will have to race again which is also race around the world. Not wanting to go through the entire ordeal again, Tom and Jerry had enough and viciously attack him, since they've risked their lives on it and could've gotten killed. They then seize the mansion's keys before walking away. An angry and disoriented J.W. then declares that Hollywood stands for family entertainment. The pharaoh-like President of Hollywood appears to incinerate J.W. for his inappropriate change of heart, while Irving becomes the new head of Globwobbler Studios. Tom and Jerry share their new mansion peacefully for a brief moment until Tom's owner shows up and orders Tom to chase Jerry, reigniting their rivalry.
Voice Cast
* Bill Kopp as Tom Cat & Frank
* John DiMaggio as J.W. Globwobbler & Spike the Bulldog
* Charlie Adler as Grammy
* Jeff Bennett as Steed Dirkly & TV Announcer
* Jess Harnell as Buzz Blister & Film Director
* Tom Kenny as Gorthan the Destroyer of Light & Whale
* Tress MacNeille as Malory "Soccer Mom" McDoogle, Tour Girl, Tom's Owner & Mermaid Monster
* Rob Paulsen as Irving & Dave
* Frank Welker as Seals & Sharks
* Billy West as Biff Buzzard, President of Hollywood & Squirty
* J. Grant Albrecht as Clown-O & Security Guard
* Thom Pinto as Computer Voice & Guard
* Neil Ross as Dr. Professor & Director
Additional Voices (uncredited)
* Vicki Lewis* Stephen Root
* Charlie Schlatter
* Renna Nightingale
* Dee Bradley Baker as Jerry Mouse
Production
According to Bill Kopp, the film's director and writer, the film was conceived and scripted in 2003 alongside 'Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars', with work on the film's animation taking place between November 2003 and March 2005.'Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry'. DVD/Blu-ray. Warner Home Video, 2005.
Widescreen
This was the second 'Tom and Jerry' film to be filmed in widescreen and the first one to be filmed in the high-definition format, although the Region 1 DVD and the U.S. version of Boomerang were in full screen (cropping the left and right of the image), though not pan and scan as the camera stays directly in the center of the image. Like other films and television series filmed in high-definition, the monitor the animation team would have worked from would have 16:9 and 4:3 safe areas so that the full screen version would not crop off too much of any of the important visual elements (such as characters). However, the film is broadcast in widescreen on Cartoon Network in the United States and released in widescreen on the Region A Blu-ray.Reception
Renee Schonfeld of Common Sense Media gave the film two stars out of four, saying "Unlike some of the wittier spoofs Tom & Jerry have starred in, this one is less clever and more straightforwardly devoted to thrills and spills."
Follow-up film
'Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers' was released on August 22, 2006.
References
Buy Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 2005