DVD Reviews

Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Aug 31, 2010, 15:09 GMT

Jewel heists around the city of London befuddle Scotland Yard and the beautiful singer Red is framed for the crook. Only the legendary Sherlock Holmes can find the real thief with the help of his assistant Dr. Watson--and of course, Tom and Jerry. But finding clues and cracking the case will be elementary compared to keeping the peace between these raucous rivals as they scamper, scurry, scoot and speed along ...more

Tom and Jerry return to star in the first feature that doesn’t have the participation from the late Hanna and Barbera.  This time the feuding cat and mouse journey back to the gaslight streets of London and help Sherlock solve a case.  The game is afoot.  

A series of jewel robberies have been committed by a trio of grave-digging cats.  However, something sinister is afoot since the robberies happen to coincide with an upcoming solar eclipse. 

Sherlock Holmes (Michael York), Dr. Watson (John Rhys-Davies), and Jerry are drawn into the case when singer Miss Red (Grey DeLise) and her servant Tom come to Baker Street with a seemingly unrelated case.  Sherlock discovers that Red’s house is being used for the next jewel theft and she’s implicated as the thief.  He puts her in the charge of Tom and Jerry while he and Watson follow clues found at the scene. 

However, those clues have been planted to lead the master detective away from London so it’s now up to Tom and Jerry to stop the villainous plan of Professor Moriatry (Malcolm McDowell).  

Tom and Jerry have been chasing each other since 1940 when they were created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.  They played on the natural adversarial relationship between cats and mice and parlayed that into a popular cartoon series.  Alas, both men have since passed on, but you can’t keep a good cat and mouse down.  So now the creations continue on without their creators. 

Sherlock Holmes has had a revival of sorts with the Robert Downey Jr. film so it might seem a natural fit to drop Tom and Jerry into Victorian London.  The duo previously visited the time of the Three Musketeers to great aplomb.  I’d give the lion’s share of nostalgia to that previous short, but it goes to show that the duo’s antics can be dropped into any situation or time. 

The cast is pretty game and feature the voice talents of Michael York, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell in the roles from the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle. 

There are even references to Sherlock in other media, such as references to Rathbone Hall, Bruce Nigel music hall, and a tailor named Brett Jeremy.  It’s not hard to cipher out who they’re referring to. 

We also get appearances from Tom and Jerry regulars Tuffy (Kath Soucie), Spike (Phil LaMarr) and son, and Butch and Droopy (both voiced by Jeff Bergman).  All of those references bring a warm glow of nostalgia for the old shorts or past Holmes (although the Holmes references are so silly, such as just reversing the first and last names, that may just cause groans). 

If you’re a Baker Street Irregular, aka a kid, then you probably won’t care about any of those and just laugh along to the antics of the cat and mouse.  

Tom and Jerry meet Sherlock Holmes is presented in widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features consist of a 7 minute featurette showing you how to draw Tom and Jerry.  There are also previews of other Warner Brothers products.  

The film is short (50 minutes) and sweet.  It may not fall into the same mold of the classic shorts, but it is pleasant time filler, filled with nostalgia for those old times, for the Sherlockian or the kiddo. 

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