Tom and Jerry (2001)

Tom and Jerry is a 2001 animated comedy film directed by Chris Columbus. The film is based on the Tom and Jerry franchise created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The movie stars Alicia Morton, Ken Jeong, and Macaulay Culkin with Spike Brandt as the two title characters and Spike and Tara Strong as Tuffy.

The movie is also dedicated to one of the franchise’s creator, William Hanna, who died three months before the movie’s release who also died during production and was the screenplayer along with Joseph Barbera and John Lasseter.

Synopsis
After destroying Mammy Two Shoe’s house, cat and mouse enemies Tom & Jerry (Spike Brandt), along with Jerry’s nephew Tuffy (Tara Strong) must find a home. But when a young girl (Alicia Morton) adopts them and the three are introduced to an new estate. But soon after, the girl’s evil father (Ken Jeong) and his pet bulldog (Spike Brandt) takes care of her and her older brother (Macaulay Culkin) while their mother (Kristen Wiig) is out in a vacation. The evil father and the bulldog plan to get rid of Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy but the children will do everything at costs to protect them, not to also mention that the evil father is looking for a piece of jewelry hidden in the secret vault under the house in the basement with lasers and a security camera. So Tom, Jerry, Tuffy, and the children must get it before the bulldog and the father do before things go wild!

Plot
As Tom & Jerry are chasing eachother, they destroy Mammy Two Shoes’ house, causing them to get kicked out along with Tuffy. Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy decide to go their separate ways and live a new life by sleeping on a puddle or in a dumpster.

Meanwhile, a young girl named Abby Lee finds the three together and decides to adopt them into a nice & lovely place where Tom & Jerry decide to get along (sometimes) and bet provided by healthy food. The mother (Kristen Wiig) and her assistant (Mike Myers) tell the children that they are going on vacation (only the mother and the butler) and says that the father (Ken Jeong) will watch them. Joey (Macaulay Culkin) says that George is evil but the mother says that he isn’t.

She calls the father and leaves the house. Five minutes later, Tom & Jerry are relaxing until they see someone (the father) and a bulldog (Spike Brandt) entering the house. The father sees Tom & Jerry and pretends to be nice to them along with Tuffy. Meanwhile, while Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy have a private meeting with them, he threatens to take them away from this house once and for all and look for a piece of jewelry hideen somewhere around the house. Tuffy goes and sees that Abby and Joey are locked up in their rooms for not doing their chores.

Tuffy then uses Tom’s head to bust through the door but it doesn’t work, causing Tom to get knocked out. Jerry then lets Tuffy step back and use a chair to open the door and it works. Tuffy explains what happened to them and Abby tells that their dad locked them in. Spike then locks the door saying “See ya, later losers! We have something to look for in this house.” Abby, Tuffy, Jerry, Joey, and Tom then gasp in shock. 3 minutes later, they hatch an escape plan by crawling through the vent and going to the mother’s room. The five make it to the mother’s room and try to stop the evil father and Spike.

While the father and Spike dodge the lasers in the secret basement, Abby, Tuffy, Jerry, Joey, and Tom break down into the basement and Tuffy gives them flashlights to see anything suspicious. They see bright red stuff in the vent, leading to the mysterious jewelry piece. Tom, Abby, Joey, Jerry, and Joey then find Martin and Spike. Jerry then uses Tom to go through the lasers, causing his skin to fall off.

Abby and Joey then fight Martin and Spike while Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy try to shut off the machine. Abby and Joey then defeat Martin and Spike and Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy turn off the machine before it can detonate. They also find the mysterious jewelry that is known as the golden cheese which Jerry falls in love with. Martin & Spike are then arrested for inprisonating children and animal cruelty to Tom & Jerry. The mother and the butler then comes home and realizes that Martin was evil all along. They then live an happily ever after.

Cast

 * Spike Brandt as
 * Tom Cat & Jerry Mouse, a cat and mouse duo who hate each other with a burning passion.
 * Spike Bulldog, an evil bulldog who teams up with Martin to found the rare jewelry.
 * Tara Strong as Tuffy Mouse, a baby mouse and the nephew of Jerry.
 * Alicia Morton as Abby Lee, a 10 year old girl who adopts Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy and the younger sister of Joey Lee
 * Macaulay Culkin as Joey Lee, a 16 year old boy and the brother of Abby.
 * Ken Jeong as Martin Lee, a evil father and a greedy man who wants to find the rare artifact to be rich and famous.
 * Kristen Wiig as Mary Lee, the mother of Abby and Joe and the former wife of Martin.
 * Mike Myers as John-Claude, the assistant of Mary.
 * Jada Pinkett Smith as Mammy Two Shoes, the former owner of Tom who soon kicks out Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy out of her house.

Development
In 1998, plans for an animated Tom & Jerry movie (unlike the 1993 movie that hit a big flop in theaters) was annouced by Chris Columbus with the film being produced by Nathan Ruegger. The film would follow around Tom & Jerry getting kicked out of the house by Mammy Two Shoes with the script written by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone.

Animation
Animation was done by Warner Bros. Animation & Framestore. At this point, Framestore done the animation for Tom & Jerry (2021) and Tom & Jerry (2022).

Casting
The casting director was John Lasseter who hired Alicia Morton as Abby, Macaulay Culkin as Joey, Ken Jeong as Martin, Kristen Wiig as Mary, Mike Myers as John-Claude, and Tara Strong as Tuffy while Spike Brandt casted himself as Spike.