Let's Watch This: "Tom Sawyer" (2000)

I've never actually read the original Tom Sawyer book. My experience with Tom Sawyer-related things basically amounts to Tom Sawyer Island at Disney World and the episodes of Futurama and The Fairly OddParents where he appears. That's it. However, I am pretty sure that in the original book, Tom Sawyer wasn't a cat.

This film was produced by MGM Animation, directed by Paul Sabella and Phil Mendez. Much like Disney's Robin Hood, it turned all of the book's characters into animals - most of them cats, because I guess cats are easy to draw or something. I probably won't be going into how much the film strays from the book because, again, I have never read it. And I know what you're thinking... doesn't my never having read the book make me unqualified to do a review of an adaptation of it? Well, I've never read the original Little Mermaid story either, but that doesn't stop me from liking the movie. And isn't a rule of good adaptations that they should be enjoyable even if whoever's watching it hasn't read the original book? Or am I just making that up?

Well, anyway, this is Tom Sawyer.

We begin by following a dragonfly to a church, where a pig preacher (voiced by Marty Stuart) is leading a gospel number. Did you know that when Robin Hood was in production, they were originally going to have Friar Tuck be a pig, but they made him a badger instead because they were worried that members of the Catholic Church would be offended? With that in mind, it's kind of odd that we have a pig be a preacher in THIS film...

Everybody's havin' themselves a grand ole time, but then the festivities are interrupted by this guy bargin' in:

Have I ever mentioned how much drool grosses me out?

This is Injurin' Joe, a character who was called "Injun Joe" in the original novel but we can't call him that in a kids' movie because it's politically incorrect. Oddly enough, he's voiced by two people - Hank Williams Jr. and Kevin Michael Richardson. And judging from the fact that he swipes the poor box, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he's the villain.

But surely the town sheriff (Pat Corley) and his deputy (Thom Adcox Hernandez) will stop Injurin' Joe, right? Well, actually, no... the sheriff is too afraid that he might hurt them. On the one hand, Injurin' Joe is a big, ferocious grizzly bear and the sheriff is some sort of dog (a bulldog, maybe?), but on the other hand, it's the sheriff's job to stop people from doing evil things. Surely he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.

Boy, Satchel from Get Fuzzy has really let himself go...

Meanwhile, at Mama Odie's house...

That looks like a precarious place to live, doesn't it?

We finally get to see Tom Sawyer himself, voiced by Rhett Akins. At the moment, he's fast asleep, dreaming about being in a Fleischer Studios cartoon.

Puss in Boots after a visit to Jenny Craig.

In his dream, he's a pirate. And he's fighting pirates. Question, did the original book have anything to do with pirates? Like, at all?

What about knights? Because one second later, he's a knight battling a dragon.

Even the horse has stick arms and legs. Not a fan of this art style.

And then he's a cowboy.

Seriously, it looks like the horse's head is going to pop off its body.

And then he's... Ali Baba, I guess, being seduced by what is presumably the only human character in the movie. This raises all sorts of questions... do humans exist in this world of anthropomorphic animals? If so, do the animals know about them? If not, why is this being in Tom's dream human, or at least has a human face?

And why is it trying to seduce him? Does Tom have a thing for humans, despite being
a cat?

And then he's an Indiana Jones knockoff, swiping a gem from a tribe of African natives. Yes, it's just as racist as it sounds. We swapped out "Injun Joe" for "Injurin' Joe", and yet THIS was allowed in.

I'll spare you a screencap of the natives.

Tom is woken up by his Aunt Polly (Betty White). He lives with her and his half-brother Sid (Dean Haglund). He also has a pet frog named Rebel (Dee Bradley Baker), who Polly and Sid are grossed out by. "I thought you made it perfectly clear that you didn't want wildlife in the house!" Sid whines. So, there are non-anthropomorphic animals in this world of anthropomorphic animals? I suppose it's not too bad since we haven't seen any anthropomorphic frogs yet, but it's still a headscratcher. It can't just be that only the mammals are anthropomorphic like in Zootopia, we see anthropomorphic birds too.

Also, what kind of frog is that supposed to be? The coloring suggests a poison dart, but they're native to South America so I don't know what one would be doing in Missouri, and physically it resembles a bullfrog...

"Binyah binyah!"

Polly throws Rebel out the window, then complains about how he smashed one of her flowerpots despite the fact that it was her own fault for tossing him out the window in the first place. Sid demonstrates that he's a snide little pain in the rear by telling Tom not to be late for school or else he'll tell their aunt. Though, honestly, I think the big round glasses, hairdo, and bow tie made it pretty clear already that he's one of those "nasty little snitch at school" type of characters.

I swear I've seen a character who looks just like him - same hairstyle and all - in another cartoon,
but I can't put my finger on WHERE...

On their way to school, Tom and Sid come across Huckleberry Finn, a fox voiced by Mark Wills who Sid dislikes because he's always loafin' around fishin' all day instead of getting a good education. Tom insists that Huck doesn't even HAVE to go to school because he's already so smart, to which Sid claims that he's gonna tell Aunt Polly about this. "I like being a snitch!" he declares, chuckling to himself as he leaves. Sid's only been on-screen for, like, five minutes and already I find him incredibly annoying. I know I'm supposed to, but still...

"How should we design Tom?"
"I dunno, maybe take the cat from Oliver and Company and give him hair, then stick
some clothes on him..."

Tom decides to spend some time with Huck instead of following Sid to school. We learn that Huck doesn't take baths - he sees them as a waste of water, since no matter how many baths you take you're just gonna have to take another one. I bet he smells really bad then. Tom tells him about his weird dream, which Huck dubs a "premonition" as he's heard that Redbeard the Pirate buried his treasure around these parts. "I betcha it's in the Boneyard!" he says with a smirk. Upon hearing that, Tom wets his pants. What is the Boneyard? Are we going to get any sort of explanation as to what the Boneyard is?

"Don't ask my why I wear overalls but can't be bothered to put on a shirt. We're animals, it's not
like clothin' is a requirement for us anyhow..."

Then two more cats show up. They are Rebecca "Becky" Thatcher, Tom's love interest voiced by Hynden Walch, and her father, Judge Thatcher, voiced by Wayon Jennings. And upon learning that Rebecca will be attending his school starting that very day, Tom is suddenly super eager to get to school because his being head over heels in love trumps his hatred for the place.

Rebecca reminds me a lot of Jenny from the Secret of NIMH sequel. Most of it probably
stems from the fact that they're both voiced by Hynden Walch, but they have the same color scheme
and general role in the movie too. Odd, isn't it?

Tom sneaks into the school building without the teacher, Mr. Dobbins, noticing. Mr. Dobbins is some sort of bird... I'm guessing a turkey, and he's voiced by Richard Kind. Alas, Sid decides to alert Mr. Dobbins of Tom's being late.

Okay, question - if this guy is supposed to be a turkey, why does he have the coloring of a
GOOSE? Turkeys aren't light grey. Of course, they don't talk, have hair, or wear clothes either, so...

Mr. Dobbins punishes Tom by... forcing him to sit with the girls. Horror of horrors. He doesn't mind, because this gives him the chance to put the moves on Becky.

"Are we in the sandbox? 'Cause I'm diggin' you..."

Side note, I always find it really distracting when cartoons give animals human hairstyles. I think it's because animals like cats are already covered with fur, so it makes me wonder which parts are considered "fur" and which parts are considered "hair". That, and it just looks weird. Could be worse, though... at least it's not like Gadget from Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, where the "fur" parts are skin-colored, which makes it look like they don't have fur at all outside of the hair on their heads...

Incidentally, Tom's flirting with Becky makes him a bit unlikeable seeing as we promptly lean that he's ENGAGED to another student, Amy Lawrence (Clea Lewis). Which is odd, seeing as they're kids... at least I think they're kids. None of the voice actors are making any sort of effort to actually SOUND like kids. If they go to school, they have to be teenagers at the very least.

"TELL ME MOOOOOOOOOOOOORE ABOUT MY EYES!"

Rebel winds up sneaking into the school - probably because Mr. Dobbins left the window open like an idiot - and as a result we get some WHACKY SHENANIGANS involving him jumping into Mr. Dobbins' mouth and down his throat. Get it? He's got a frog in his throat? Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

This is a wonderful screencap because, out of context, it's unclear just WHAT, exactly, is going on.

After the torturing of Mr. Dobbins concludes, Tom and Becky do some more flirting. Reminder: Tom is engaged.

I just realized something. Tom is a cat. As in a TOMcat. I see what they did there. Come to think of it, why didn't they call the movie Tomcat Sawyer? Did they think it was too on the nose or something?

Are you FELINE the romance that's goin' on between these two?

Get it? FELINE? Because they're... yeah, I'll show myself out...

Through a montage, we see that Judge Thatcher don't approve of Tom havin' a thing for his daughter. For some reason. Maybe he knows that Tom's engaged?

The next day, Tom wants to do some fishing, but Aunt Polly has put him in charge of painting her boat while she and Sid go out for the day. The solution - trick some of the other kids (most of whom are clearly voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) into thinking that painting a boat is fun, fun, fun so that they'll ask if THEY can do the painting for him. He does this through song... and by "song", I mean he and the other characters speak in rhyme to some bouncy music.

Why the heck does the turtle have hair? Turtles do not have hair!

Say, wasn't it a FENCE Tom tricked somebody into painting for him in the book?

Eventually, Becky shows up, and she and Tom do some more flirting. His girlfriend who looks like a cat version of Lila from Hey Arnold is, understandably, not pleased. Fortunately, Tom gets his comeuppance for being a two-timer when Becky tricks him into kissing Rebel.

And Rebel didn't even turn into a prince.

That night, Tom and Rebel sneak out to meet up with Huck and do some treasure-huntin'. They go to the Boneyard, which as it turns out is some sort of cemetery. But they're not the only ones there. Injurin' Joe is forcing a dog voiced by Don Knotts to dig for the treasure as well. And guess who else is there? The town deputy! "This here belongs to the county!" he declares upon seeing the treasure chest.

Then the film takes a really dark turn as Injurin' Joe actually kills the deputy. No, he doesn't tear him limb from limb as you'd expect a big ol' grizzly bear to do, he throws him through the air and he slams his head on a tombstone. Still, that's pretty dark. Maybe they should've called this guy Murderin' Joe.

Not only that, but he also leaves the Don Knotts dog... well, okay, his name is Mutt Potter, I suppose I should probably mention that because just calling him "the Don Knotts dog" sounds lazy... in the pit with the deputy's badge so that everyone will think Mutt killed the deputy. Tom and Huck manage to get away, but Rebel isn't so lucky. Don't worry, he's not killed like the deputy was. Still, being the hostage of a ferocious bear doesn't exactly sound like much fun.

Injurin' Joe really needs a manicure.

Tom knows that if Injurin' Joe finds out he and Huck were the ones who saw what he did to the deputy, they will likely suffer the same fate. So they decide not to tell anyone what they saw. Meanwhile, Sheriff Fu Dog is woken up by a note wrapped through a rock flyin' through his window. The note reads "Mutt Potter is out cold in the ol' boneyard. He sure needs help. Unknown friend..."

The sheriff goes to the boneyard and, of course, assumes that Mutt killed the deputy despite his insistence that he doesn't remember anything. "You're gonna HANG, Potter!" he snarls. "You're gonna HANG from the HIGHEST TREE!"

Becky arrives early at school and sneaks a peek at Tom's test paper. As usual, he got an "F". Then she accidentally spills ink all over it. Tom tries to help clean it off with his tail, but winds up smudging it more. Becky's all "I'm in so much trouble!". Tom suggests that she do what he always does - lie. "You mean, not tell the truth?!" Becky gasps. Yes, Becky, that's basically the definition of lying.

"Lie?! As in, MAKE SOMETHING UP?!"

When Mr. Dobbins shows up and sees the spilled ink, Amy tattles on Becky (shouldn't that be Sid's job?), but Tom claims that HE spilled the ink and he has the ink on his tail to prove it. Mr. Dobbins punishes him by whacking him on the behind with a ruler multiple times. Apparently, it was okay to do that when the novel was first released. These days, Mr. Dobbins would be lucky not to get a pink slip.

"Feel the wrath of my ruler, Offbrand Danny from Cats Don't Dance!"

After school, Huck warns Tom that he thinks Injurin' Joe is on to them. This makes Tom very paranoid, and eventually he winds up running right into Becky again. You know what that means - MORE FLIRTING! Oh, and Amy just so happens to be nearby. I don't even get it. If Tom already has Amy, why does he even need to put the moves on Becky? What does Becky have that Amy doesn't?

Then Becky and Amy start singing. For whatever reason, Becky's singing is done by Lee Ann Womack and Amy's singing is done by Alecia Elliott. Did they think that Hynden Walch and Clea Lewis couldn't sing or something? Did they just want to get more country singers into the film somehow?

Well, eventually Becky finds out that Tom is, y'know, engaged and she's pretty mad. That's what you get for being a two-timer, Tom.

That night, Tom and Huck head off to bring a ham to Mutt in the hopes that it'll help him remember what happened the night that Injurin' Joe killed the deputy. Too bad they just so happen to be walkin' by Brer Fox's den...

"That Brer Rabbit won't get away this time. I'm gonna catch him and then I'm gonna eat him
or hang him or skin him or maybe throw him in the briar patch!"

...I mean, Injurin Joe's lair, and he overhears them. As does Rebel, who hops out of the lair to find them, Joe in pursuit.

Wait, if pigs are anthropomorphic in this world, where did they get the ham? Did Tom and Huck...
you know?

After bringing Mutt the ham, Tom, Huck, and Rebel are pursued by Joe through the woods, but they manage to get away via a convenient raft. Presumably, they are swept out to sea, and eventually wash up on an island. When the sun rises, they discover a pile of rocks that just so happens to look a lot like Redbeard's ship...

Boy, this movie is long...

And instead of being concerned that they're stranded on a deserted island with no food or shelter, or that Mutt is still going to get hanged, or that Injurin' Joe is still running free, Tom and Huck have themselves a musical number about friendship, prancing around through a Technicolor landscape where EVERYTHING IS ALIVE. Flowers, clouds, leaves, even the water! THE WATER IS ALIVE. I hate to steal a line from the Nostalgia Critic, but... it's like Pee-Wee's Earth!

Sentient water should not be that terrifying.

Seriously, this whole sequence MUST BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED. By the time we get to the leaf-breathing dragon showing up, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're on acid.

And why does the dragon have a beak? I know that's hardly the strangest thing in this
musical number, but still...

So after whatever the heck we just watched, we see Aunt Polly, Sid, Becky, the sheriff, Judge Thatcher, and that skunk kid finding the remains of Huck's raft and Tom's boot. They form themselves a search party and, fortunately, eventually drift by the island where Tom and Huck are. Tom and Huck try to get their attention, but are unable to. So, first thing in the morning, Tom says, they're gonna swim back and let them know they're okay... why do they have to wait until morning? Why not try and swim after the rafts right now? Is it just easier to swim in the daylight or something?

But wait, Huck points out. Injurin' Joe is still looking for them, right? Tom says that they'll disguise themselves and live in storm cellars like outlaws. So, wait, hang on... they want to let the townsfolk know they're okay, but they want to disguise themselves and essentially live like outlaws? Why don't they just tell the sheriff "Hey, Injurin' Joe is the one who killed the deputy, and now he's out for us!"?

Well, in the morning, they wind up crashing their wake. So everyone knows that they're still alive. But what about Mutt? He's still gonna get a noose around his neck. Tom wants to clear his name, but Injurin' Joe shows up at the lynching. If he blabs, Injurin' Joe will have his neck. What will Tom do?

Oh, of COURSE he does the right thing. "Injurin' Joe did it!" he shouts. Joe chases after him and Huck, and the sheriff actually decides to do something about it.

I know bears are big, but are they really THAT big? Is Joe just abnormally large? Or are the rest
of the characters just small?

Long story short, Joe winds up falling through a bridge and into the river. And the river leads to a waterfall because of course it does. Tom and Huck are heroes. Tom and Becky sneak away from the party to do some spelunking... jeez, shouldn't the movie be over by now? The bad guy's been defeated, Mutt's been saved, where the heck are the credits?

At one point during this scene, Tom and Becky see a skeleton. A skeleton that looks more
like a human's than an animal's. This just makes things more confusing.

The others eventually notice that Tom and Becky snuck off and head to the cave to rescue them. And then we get another song. Seriously, shouldn't the movie be over? What is the purpose of this scene? Oh, so they can find that treasure Tom was so determined to get his paws on.

And, as it turns out, for the actual climax. You see, Injurin' Joe somehow survived hurtling over a waterfall and just so happened to land in that very same cave.

Seriously, even for a BEAR Joe looks abnormally large...

Blah blah blah, more chasing, Tom and Becky wind up back in the hot springs of Nickelodeon slime, and the others show up just in time. Huck sics a flock of bats on Joe, allowing Tom and Becky to get away. Then water starts rushing in. Water and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. One of which clobbers Joe. So, he can survive a waterfall but a ROCK takes Joe out. Okay then...

After that, the roof caves in and this is the result:

A skylight. Not sure how that's impressive...

Amy hooks up with Huck, leaving Tom free to hook up with Becky. Sid is punished for the crime of being a snitch. All's well that ends well.

What's the Verdict?

There isn't anything really "bad" about Tom Sawyer. The animation's good, most of the voice actors do a fine job, and the songs are decent. However, the film does have a few problems. For one thing, it's long. Very, very long. There are a couple pointless scenes that could've easily been taken out. Even the trippy musical number with the sentient water. On top of that, Tom, Huck, and Becky are kind of dull. Making the characters animals was a nice touch, but there's not much variety - it's mostly cats and dogs. Why couldn't they have made the Sheriff, I dunno, a raccoon or a weasel or something? Or made Amy a mountain lion or a bobcat?

Still, as a whole I think the film is okay. Like I said, I haven't read the original book so I don't know how many liberties this adaptation took (other than the whole "they're all animals" thing). Maybe somebody who's actually read the book can fill me in.

What are we reviewing next time?