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Shiver me Whiskers! it's another review.
Posted: May 28, 2015So after the previous DVD viewing, I needed some other Tom and Jerry cartoon to purge the memory of it. So I sat down and watched Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers. So here are my thoughts on this Direct to DVD:
Tom and Jerry are two sailors aboard a pirate ship, captained by Red Pirate Ron who talks through his parrat because all he can say is "YAR", that is caught in heavy storms on the sea. When a particularly large wave crashes on deck it brings with it a glass bottle with a treasure map leading to the "Lost Treasure of the Spanish Mane". Tom and Jerry fight for the map only to lose it to the Captain, who; as it turns out, has been searching for this treasure of 40 years. Red Pirate Ron brothers, Blue Pirate Bob and Purple Pirate Paul, have also been searching for this lost treasures. As the ship sails to Yo-Ho-Ho Island where the treasure is buried they encounter Blue Pirate Bob's ship.
It turns out that when these pirates where young and aboard their mother's pirate ship they found this map, but fought over it resulting in the Pirate mom taking all their maps from from them and putting them in bottles and dumping them out to sea. Anyway, as Tom manages to get his paws on the map again we find out, from the ghost of Don Diego de Clippershears, that a terrible curse will befall them if the map is not returned to bottle before sunset. This doesn't happen due to the battle between Blue and Red Pirates, which results in the curse awakening the long dead pirates of the Spanish Mane who seizes Red Pirate Ron's Ship.
The rag-tag pirate crew make their way to Yo-Ho-Ho Island where both Tom and Jerry are able to get the map back and look for the treasure. Meanwhile the Red and Blue Pirates are also looking for the treasure, Tom and Jerry, and fighting amongst themselves. Tom and Jerry also encounter Purple Pirate Paul who has been on the island for 10 years and not be able to find the treasure....not sure how that happens but whatever. Anyway, Tom and Jerry manage to outwit Purple Paul and find the treasure, but alas the ghost of Don Diego awakens and leads Tom and Jerry on an elaborate Rube Goldbergesque hunt for the buried treasure. Both Tom and Jerry manage to outwit the traps, working together and getting a bit of treasure as they sail off to live on their riches...and then go back to chasing each other.
The Good:
Well, I will have to say that this is truly the first Direct to DVD movie that understands how important the music was to the original Tom and Jerry cartoons. The soundtrack is featured very heavily in the action and movements of all the characters especially Tom and Jerry. This movies also heavily relies on some of the old cartoon sound effects, especially Tom's scream. The animation is pretty solid hand-drawn work and very fluid. I enjoyed how clever traps were to find the treasure. The other stand out of this is how Tom and Jerry interact with each other. There is the obvious rivalry and not the overt chase for the sake of chasing.
The Bad:
For the love! The endless "YAR","yar", "YAAARRRR" from Red Pirate Ron and Blue Pirate Bob really gets old. REALLY! It doesn't help that the parrot companions on each captain's shoulder is annoying too as they translate the grunts and the yars. The funny thing is that Purple Pirate Paul actually talks normally and has a parrot that yars and grunts. The traps that Tom and Jerry have to go through, were elaborate, but ended up being ridiculous with each progressive solution.
The Ugly:
Captain Ron's "yarring" really got annoying after more than a half hour of watching this. But my biggest beef with Shiver Me Whiskers was there hardly seemed to be a break in the chase scenes. One right after the other of endless running, chasing, dodging, fighting. It became exhausting watching this. Now I get that Tom and Jerry chase each other...it's kind of their thing; but there comes a point of being excessive after an hour of chases.
Overall, I think this one of the closest the new Tom and Jerry's have come to the magic of the MGM era. It is a testament to Joseph Barbera still being alive at the time and excutive producing; which is good since the previous Tom and Jerry he was involved in was awful.
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