ANI-MOVES, *Tom Sawyer

As one of the few movies that's part of the limited MGM Animation lineup, the 2000 made-for-video release of Tom Sawyer isn't the first animated version of the original Mark Twain book, but it is the first time they had the cast be made entirely of anthropomorphic animals. This is one of those strange cartoon worlds where the people are animals, but they also have regular "animals" as animals, like Goofy and Pluto from Disney. There was also a strong emphasis on introducing musical numbers into the fray, ususally country music.

Set in a more swampy version of Mississippi, Tom Sawyer is a feline lad that lives with his Aunt Polly and his brother Sidney who ususally snitches on all his shennanigans. Tom is best friends with the orphened Huckleberry Finn, but is suddenly more interested in school more with the cute new girl Becky Thatcher starts going to his class. This begins a slight rivalry between Becky and Tom's original girlfriend Amy, which gives the character alot more airtime in this version of the story than in the original book. Tom and Huck go out looking for a lost pirate treasure in a graveyard one night, to see the resident troublemaker, "Injurin'" Joe, a huge bear with long claws forcing the local yokel Mutt Potter to dig the treasure up. Joe murders a snoopy deputy, leaving Mutt to take the wrap, with Tom and Huck witnessing the whole thing, and getting lost escaping Joe. The two best friends get lost on an island, while everyone in town thinks that they are now dead, but not after crashing their own funeral. Tom and Huck fess up to stop Mutt from getting hanged, but Joe arrives to shut them up, leading to his supposed drowning in the river. Following a victory celebration, Tom and Becky explore the spooky Dead Man's Cave, where it turns out Joe has been living and hiding the treasure. The townsfolk manage to witness Tom outsmarting Joe for the final time, and Amy taking a new liking to Huck, resolving Tom's love triangle.

Upon first look, it appears that MGM was trying to bring back the success they had with Don Bluth's installments in their catalog like The Secret Of NIMH or All Dogs Go To Heaven. Despite that, the character designs have their own unique style to them seperating from looking too much like Looney Tunes. The cast is robust with regular voice over celebrities like Betty White and Don Knotts, plus regular country singers such as Rhett Akins and Mark Willis filling the parts of Tom and Huck. It's unusual for a film intended for children to contain mature subject matter like murder and capitol punishment, however it does represent them in a mostly believeable matter. Plus, kitty Becky Thatcher is sooooo cute!