Tom and Jerry

They take selfies for Instagram, mug for the Jumbotron at a Yankees game, and fly a drone through some crowded Manhattan streets. In other words, this is not your father’s Tom and Jerry.

The new big-screen adventure — a present-day origin story of sorts — further proves what we’ve learned over the past several decades. While they might have more than nine lives, the iconic cat-and-mouse duo fares better in short segments.

Mixing live action and animation, the four-legged title characters and their critter counterparts are far more compelling than their two-legged co-stars in what amounts to a showcase for some seamless special effects work in service of some lousy screenwriting.

As usual, Tom and Jerry can understand humans but can’t speak (although Tom does belt out an auto-tone number at a piano bar). The perpetual love-hate relationship in this instance feels more like they’re friendly adversaries more into mischief than malevolence.

With those ground rules in place, the story begins with Tom and Jerry partnering as street musicians trying to hustle passersby for loose change. Eventually Jerry infiltrates a swanky hotel where Kayla (Chloe Grace Moretz) has conned her way into a job as a caterer.

Assigned to eradicate the rowdy rodent prior on the eve of a posh wedding ceremony, Kayla convinces the events manager (Michael Pena) to hire Tom to get the job done. However, as the situation worsens with Jerry grifting food left and right, Tom becomes sidetracked by some taunting alley cats determined to take over his turf.

Although it’s been done with various degrees of effectiveness in other projects, in this case the decision to place animated anthropomorphic animals into a live-action real world proves awkward. Perhaps it’s a misguided attempt to conjure some nostalgic charm.

At any rate, director Tim Story (Ride Along) seems insistent on cramming every frame with as much mayhem as possible for children with short-attention spans. Such chaos inspires a few clever sight gags and amusing inter-species confrontations when things aren’t too obnoxious.

The target demographic might appreciate the slapstick animal antics, and at least be prompted to seek out the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons online. That would certainly be a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

Rated PG, 101 minutes.