Top Cat Begins | Film review - He isn't the most tip top

"Top Cat Begins"

Cheap-looking computer-animated movie Top Cat Begins purports to show how the crafty scam-artist feline from the early-1960s Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons first hooked up with his gang of New York alley cats. In fact, most of the plot is taken up with a fairly lame caper pitting Top Cat against an alligator crime boss and his goons. Save for bumbling innocent Benny the Ball, the other members of the gang barely get a look in. Young children may get a kick out of the rough-and-tumble action. But anyone familiar with the original will find this furball hard to swallow.

Certificate U. Runtime 90 mins. Director Andrés Couturier

Top Cat Begins debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on 18 March and is available on DVD from Warner Home Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGdDihSGhUY

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.