Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory [DVD]

Director: Spike Brandt

Cast: JP Karliak, Jess Harnell, Lincoln Melcher (VOICES)

Release Date: July 11, 2017

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 8/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

In this entertaining new film, Tom and Jerry meet Charlie Bucket, a young boy who finds one of five golden tickets, hidden inside the wrappers of Wonka chocolate bars. The lucky few who find a golden ticket are invited to visit Willy Wonka’s world famous chocolate factory and win a lifetime supply of chocolate.

As Charlie sets out to meet Willy Wonka, Tom and Jerry secretly accompany him. Along the way, they help him steer clear of the evil Arthur Slugworth, who tries to talk Charlie into bringing him Willy Wonka’s latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper. They also meet Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teevee, the four other kids who also find golden tickets and are invited to tour the chocolate factory with Charlie.

Favorite Tom and Jerry cartoon characters, including Tuffy, Spike and Droopy also join in the fun. A fresh take on the classic story, Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is an action-packed family film filled with laugh-out-loud moments and fur-flying exploits that only our favorite cat and mouse duo can deliver!

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

Gather the entire family and get ready for a wild and goofy new take on the classic tale of ‘Willy Wonka’ featuring your favorite cat and mouse duo ‘Tom and Jerry’.  ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ follows young Charlie Bucket, a young, kind and unfortunately broke boy whose one dream is to win one of the amazing golden tickets included in the delicious Wonka Chocolate bars he loves which will allow him access to the famous factory. After nearly losing hope, thanks to a little mischievous help from Tom and Jerry, Charlie finds the final golden ticket and accompanied by his grandpa journey’s to the wondrous chocolate factory which only excels his expectations in nearly every way. What Charlie and his grandfather don’t realize is that the troublemaking cat and mouse duo have secretly found their way into the factory as well and before long mayhem and hilarious fun ensues as two famous worlds collide in this brand new feature length animated movie.

‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ is a humorous, sweet and just downright fun animated adventure for the entire family. Somewhat surprisingly, it quite closely follows the original Willy Wonka tale for the most part, simply integrating Tom and Jerry into the story (along with some amusing cameos from other series regulars including Spike, Droopy and more) as opposed to entirely revamping it in their favor, even going so far as to retain all of your favorite catchy songs including “Pure Imagination”, “The Candy Man” and more. Wisely making certain to always keep the tale of Charlie and the factory close at hand and then mixing it with plenty of sideline adventures featuring Tom, Jerry and an Oompa Loompa in training as they attempt to stop the bad guys invading the factory with the intention of stealing Wonka’s famous recipe for their own gain. It’s an incredibly fun, humorous and heartfelt animated flick that should prove a perfect selection for a family movie night thanks to its ability to offer something for children young and old (this of course means you fellow adults), with plenty of nostalgia for the adults and a perfect way to introduce young ones to Roald Dahl’s famous tale that stays true to the source material (and the classic film) yet also offers a fun new twist.

Overall, ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ is a fun and humorous throwback to the classic tale with plenty of enjoyable antics from the lovable Tom and Jerry thrown into the mix for good measure. This animated film offers a great new way for young ones to be introduced to Dahl’s famous story, while also providing some heartwarming nostalgia for the older audiences; not to mention the always entertaining goofiness of everyone’s favorite cat and mouse duo doing their thing. The DVD release provides fairly solid standard definition video and multichannel audio presentations on the feature, along with some classic bonus cartoons from various Tom and Jerry shows which should make this release at least worth considering for any fan of the famous animated duo, the story of Charlie/Willy Wonka or both, that also doesn’t mind the DVD format in general.

VIDEO:

The DVD release of ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ is presented in a 16×9 friendly Widescreen presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty great as far as the DVD format allows, offering a sharp, warmly colored and clean standard definition presentation throughout with no notable faults to be found along the way. Overall, this is a solid standard definition video presentation that should have no trouble pleasing the young ones and fans that don’t mind or still adamantly collect the DVD format.

AUDIO:

The DVD release features a 384 kbps 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack. This multichannel audio presentation may not be overly aggressive or take too much advantage of the surround elements, but it certainly provides a clean, smooth and constantly audible presentation throughout. It takes advantage of the various surround channels in order to send the music and some mild auditory effects throughout, but rarely utilizes them for much of anything else. Overall, this is a competent and clean 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack which may not be exceptional but still consistently gets the job done quite well.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The DVD release of ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ includes a collection of bonus cartoons from various Tom and Jerry shows over the years. The bonus cartoons include: ‘The Tom and Jerry Show: “Here’s Looking A-Choo Kid/ Superfied”’ (running approximately 21 minutes in length), ‘Tom and Jerry Tales: “Joy Riding Jokers/ Cat Got Your Luggage/ City Dump Chumps”’ (running approximately 23 minutes), and three episodes of the ‘Tom and Jerry Kids Show’:  “No Biz Like Snow Biz”, “The Maltese Poodle”, and “Cast Away Tom” (approximately 9 minutes each).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the DVD and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this DVD release are the property of their respective owners.

 Film Rating: 8/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ Arrives on DVD July 11, 2017 & is Now Available on Digital HD from Turner Entertainment Co. / Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

You can purchase ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ by clicking on the Amazon Cart Icon immediately below!