Top Cat Begins

The first Top Cat film, Top Cat: the Movie, though cute enough for younger kids, hardly set the world on fire. So it comes as some surprise that its Mexican animators and their English-language dubbers have now served up a second feature-length helping of what's basically Sgt Bilko, but with cats. They needn't have bothered. Top Cat Begins is loud, unfunny, randomly plotted, and utterly bereft of the roguish charm of the TV original. Essentially "Top Cat: The Early Years", it's the tale of how TC first became a big-city "scam cat", meeting future gang pals and arch-nemesis Officer Dibble in the process. But forget such niceties as plot points. If you're unfortunate enough to have to see this, close your eyes, drift away, and take refuge instead in much happier memories of the 1960s cartoon series that spawned it.