Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,095
Written 5/14/21
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Buy it... if you're familiar with Christopher Lennertz's
well-established hip hop and funk stylings, that mode blending wildly
with orchestral parody music in this enthusiastic romp.
Avoid it... if you lament the loss of the historical jazz that used
to define this concept, Lennertz's replacement challenging to digest
both culturally and structurally.
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| Lennertz |
Tom & Jerry: (Christopher Lennertz) Who could have
guessed that the antics of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry could
endure for hundreds of animated short films spanning from the 1940's to
the 2010's? At their height in the 1960's, the William Hanna and Joseph
Barbera creation surpassed even "Looney Tunes" in profitability. Since
then, countless spin-offs on television have kept the "Tom and Jerry"
concept alive, and the characters debuted in a feature film in 1992.
Audiences still hadn't gotten enough of the cat and mouse chase decades
later, Warner Brothers offering the duo in a mixed live action and
animation romp, Tom & Jerry, in 2021. The basic formula of the
two leads remains the same, opportunities for the cat and mouse to
comfortably join forces for some awkward cause always tempting but
elusive. In this case, their initial chase through New York leads them
into a hotel where they become entangled in the affairs of human
characters led by a young woman employed by hotel to help manage a
wedding. Even if you wouldn't mind seeing the cat and mouse dismembered
and served for dinner, you're supposed to care about the hapless, pretty
young humans in the story. Endlessly unrealistic comedy scenarios
abound, and the film was appropriately crucified by critics. Such
intellectual discontent didn't stop audiences from soaking in the hybrid
theatre and streaming opportunity, and Tom & Jerry became a
surprising fiscal success. (In one of the best mishaps of the year, some
people ordering the film on HBO Max were mistakenly treated to Zack
Snyder's Justice League ten days prior to its release.) Director Tim
Story turned to one of his most frequent collaborators for the project,
comedy and parody master Christopher Lennertz, to write the score. The
"Tom and Jerry" franchise long thrived with a robust presence of big
band jazz music, the 1992 film going so far as to hire Henry Mancini in
one of his final assignments. But Story rejected the notion of extending
that musical personality for Tom & Jerry, infusing rap songs into
the picture and instructing Lennertz to write a hip hop and
funk-inspired score. Their prior films, such as a Shaft remake
and the Ride Along franchise, were understandably saturated with
these tones, and with Lennertz also well versed in animated adaptations
like 2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks, he was certainly well
prepared to merge these musical worlds for Story. Does hip hop and funk
work for Tom & Jerry? Maybe not, and some listeners will
definitely hate it, but the music itself is well crafted and
entertaining.
The application of music associated with black culture
for
Tom & Jerry is a true head-scratcher, though Lennertz pilfers
a variety of other stereotypes in the score, from the Appalachian
"Locked Up" to the two Middle Eastern "Cheese Trap" cues and the Indian
"Wedding Disaster." There's a brief touch of vintage jazz thrown in the
middle of the work as well. So, in reality, the problem most listeners
will have with this music is not just the fact that hip hop and funk
sounds from a few decades ago sound bizarre in this context, but rather
the reality that this score is totally out of control from start to
finish. The best music of this genre can address all the manic changes
in pacing and emotion in the story without losing its core. By the time
orchestral mayhem takes charge in the latter half of this work, Lennertz
has lost all cohesion. That said, the individual moments in
Tom &
Jerry are all highly competent and frequently amusing, addressing
scenes' passing needs well enough to float the whole experience. The
instrumental and choral diversity in the work is admirable, and when
Lennertz cooks with his symphonic depth, his work is often quite good.
The "Wedding Disaster" cue is, despite the ethnic humor, a fantastic
suspense and action cue on par with the composer's best parody music,
culminating in a lift of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." Thematically,
Lennertz concentrates his motifs for the two leads in the hip hop and
funk material bookending the score and supplying grooves to the first
ten or so cues. Expect these tunes and their rendering to sound like an
80% rehash of his
Shaft and
Ride Along scores. He offers a
tender but fleeting romance theme in "Bridal Chat" that receives fuller
treatment with elevator muzak and soft rock pleasantries in "Married in
the Park." The melody of this idea contains a descending phrase that
connects back to Jerry's identity from "Jerry's Theme" and "Cat Dog
Mouse Fight," though that might be an intellectual stretch. In the end,
Tom & Jerry is endearing and exhausting at the same time. There's
only so much of the record scratching sound effect that one can tolerate
in this context. Expect most film music collectors sympathetic to the
Mancini approach to refuse the patience necessary for its tone. But
there are some really smart comedy moments in the work, the latter half
of "Better Cheese Trap" among the snazziest pieces of parody music in
years. At 56 minutes in length, the digital-only album for
Tom &
Jerry will function best if trimmed down to 15-20 minutes of the
most rousing and cool moments. There's much to like about Lennertz's
talents here, but this score was destined for trouble the moment the
director decided to infuse the soundtrack with black culture despite
almost all the human, feline, and vermin characters in the story being,
well, not black.
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