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6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Tom Thumb remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a thing for early animation, sure. It’s barely a few minutes long, so you won’t lose much. If you need a coherent story or pacing that makes sense, skip it and watch Bulldog Drummond instead. It’s for the curious souls who like seeing how cartoons looked before everyone got obsessed with perfect fluid motion.
So, Krazy Kat and Kitty get shrunk. Why? Who knows. The movie doesn't really care to explain the physics of it. One minute they are normal-ish, the next they are basically bug bait in a garden.
The villain is this nasty-looking insect that has way too much personality for a side character. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. He’s got that classic silent-era menace where he just kind of wiggles his arms and looks hungry. It’s actually a little unsettling.
The movement in this thing is… choppy. It’s like watching a flipbook that’s missing every third page. Sometimes the characters just snap into a new position rather than walking there. It reminded me of those weird, jerky movements in A Gym Dandy where you can almost see the animator’s hand pushing the paper around.
There’s a moment where Kitty is being dragged away, and the scale of the environment is totally ignored. One second they are small, the next they seem to be fighting on a giant leaf that looks more like a carpet. It’s sloppy, but honestly, it adds to the charm.
I found myself staring at the way the lines waver. You don't get that digital crispness today. Every frame has a fingerprint on it, figuratively speaking. It’s imperfect. It’s messy. It’s definitely not The Stolen Jools in terms of star power, but it has a weird, twitchy energy all its own.
I’m not saying it’s high art. It’s just a weird little artifact. If you’re bored and want to see some bugs being jerks to a cat, you could do worse. 🐜