Garfield Movie Review:


I should start by stating where I stand on the entity known as "Garfield." First off, I'm a comic strip enthusiast; when I was much younger, I not only read the funnies but also read about them. I learned about their artistic qualities and am today a proponent of their validity as an art form, often referring to the works of Charles M. Schulz, G.B. Trudeau, Bill Watterson, and others. My brother and I used to draw a comic strip as well, privately and just for fun, and I learned a lot about creative writing in the process.

Along with appreciating the good came discovering the bad -- I consider Jim Davis's “Garfield” to be the worst comic strip running today. When it first became popular in the 1980s, it had an irreverence that was hard to resist; back then, I counted myself among its fans. But, as the strip became more and more successful, it also became more and more lazy. I believe Davis today has a staff drawing the strip and thinking up the recyclable jokes, all deliberately diluted to confuse as few readers as possible, no matter their age or background. “Garfield” exists now as a soulless commercial enterprise, coasting off the popularity it gained in its early years, endlessly juggling jokes about Mondays, spiders, cats, dogs, dopey owners, and, appropriately, laziness.

I know some of you are thinking, well, “Garfield” isn't the only comic strip guilty of that these days, and that's true, but “Garfield” is perhaps the most blatantly commercial, and so it's the easiest, most visible target. To further prove this, out comes “Garfield,” the live-action movie. Not “Beetle Bailey,” the live-action movie. Not “Hagar the Horrible,” the live-action movie. “Garfield.” And, no, those “Blondie” movies from the '30s and '40s don't count.

What possible reason could there be for anyone deciding to make a “Garfield” movie today, other than to further inflate the cash cow? Garfield hasn't really enjoyed the media spotlight since the late '80s, when all those plush toys found themselves suction-cupped to car rear windows across America. How much recognition does the character have with today's kids, the movie's intended audience? Were there hordes of older fans just waiting for computer technology to become advanced enough to finally animate a 3-D Garfield for a live-action movie? If so, why was only Garfield animated, and not his equally recognizable canine counterpart, Odie?

Odie, you see, is played by a real dog. He doesn't exactly look similar to Odie, but, then again, the live-action Nermal (Garfield's kitty foil) and Arlene (Garfield's female feline friend) don't look anything like their drawn selves, either. They look like regular old cats, except they talk. Oh yeah -- unlike the cartoons, where Garfield and his four-legged buddies "think-talk," these guys move their lips when they speak. I don't really understand the decision to do this; I assume the filmmakers are just following the talking-animal fad that's so popular these days, picking up where “Cats & Dogs” left off. It's not as if think-talking doesn't work in a live-action setting -- see “Homeward Bound,” it worked pretty well there.

Garfield is voiced by Bill Murray, which only further makes us wonder why Oscar-nominated turns are always followed by embarrassing parts. His voicing is decent -- he's no Lorenzo Music, but then Music passed away a few years ago, so Murray is a fitting choice. Ultimately, the voicing sounds like a cross between what we'd associate with Garfield and what we'd associate with Murray, the result of which is not particularly interesting. Meanwhile, live-action Jon is played by Breckin Meyer as someone possibly more clueless than the character in the strip. He's been paired up with a needless love interest played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose job it is to smile and look cute running all around town in a short dress.

The plot, meanwhile, is one we've seen before, wherein the main character lives a cozy life by himself (if you don't count the oblivious owner) until a new guy (here, Odie) moves in and begins to disrupt the old lifestyle. When the protagonist somehow ousts the new guy, he feels guilty enough to consider finding a way to ensure his return. In the movie, Odie is ultimately kidnapped and Garfield must come to the rescue. Incidentally, Odie's capture and rescue also anchored the plot of Garfield's first animated half-hour special, "Here Comes Garfield." That modest little feature was more entertaining than this current film.

So “Garfield: The Movie” has precious little going for it. It uses an old formula plot, with actors in formula roles playing second-fiddle to cute, formula talking animals, one of whom is cg. In a way, it's the perfect representation of “Garfield.” A bland comic strip inspires a bland movie. Normally, I get worked up whenever a movie does an injustice to a source material I hold dear; this time, I had no reason to muster any anger. The movie, in some twisted way, is actually faithful to the spiritless spirit of the strip. If both the strip and the movie weren't so bad, I might actually by amused by this.

Jeffrey Chen

The lovable lazy feline who scarfs lasagne and is a staple in the funny pages of newspapers across the globe comes to the silver screen in a live-action take.

Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) nearly has a heart attack when his love-struck master Jon Arbuckle (Breckin Meyer) brings home a wily pup named Odie. Arbuckle is infatuated with Garfield’s vet, Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and he thinks by taking homeless Odie home maybe he can finally get a date.

Odie does bring the couple together but after Odie delights an audience at a dog show, TV host Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky) becomes obsessed with procuring Odie for his show.

The next night a jealous Garfield ends up locking Odie outside and he falls into the clutches of Happy. Now Garfield must save Odie from the sinister TV host. Can an over-weight, food-obsessed cat save the day? He’ll have to stop for a snack first.

I don’t know who thought that this was Garfield. Writers Joel Cohen and Arnold Sokolow wrote the Steve Martin comedy, “Cheaper by the Dozen” but their take on Garfield is almost sacrilege. There is nothing in this less than 80 minute film that works, well except for the CGI pertaining to the film’s star.

Garfield’s animation team should really be commended for making Garfield come to life. His animated movement, facial tweaks and human interaction is the star of the film. It is just too bad that everything else is so awful around it.

The relationship between Hewitt and Meyer has less chemistry than two plastic Barbie and Ken dolls. The guest voices on the other animals are mundane and not funny. And why is it that Garfield is the only character that looks like the cartoon? It really felt odd seeing Garfield interact with real animals. It was almost a hybrid of “Dr. Doolittle”.

The film comes with an animated short featuring “Ice Age” character Scratch called “Gone Nutty”. That little short is hilarious and has more laughs than the entire Garfield film.

I loved the Garfield television show and comic-strips and it boggles my mind to how they came up with such a painful film on such a lovable character.

(1 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

Arriving a decade too late, Garfield: The Movie, the film adaptation of Jim Davis’ beloved comic strip falls flat due to prone inconsistencies and lack of flavor. Children under 10 years old may enjoy this film, with the recent success of the weaker Scooby-Doo films, but all other audience members will be in for a waste of time.

The film of course centers on the spoiled, lazy, fat orange cat Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray), who continuously endures lasagna and lives with his absent-minded owner Jon (Breckin Meyer). In the comic strip and the many cartoons of the 1980’s, Garfield was stubborn and mischievous, as he is in this film, but his thoughts were spoken or heard. However, in Garfield: The Movie, he talks right to the audience through the voice of Bill Murray and is completely computer generated with huge green eyes. Garfield’s perfect lifestyle is altered when Jon brings home a dog-named Odie that he accepts from a beautiful veterinarian that he has a crush on named Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt). Odie is Jack Russell Terrier that is now given all of the attention from Jon, while Garfield becomes secondary. In efforts to regain Jon’s affection, Garfield locks Odie outside one night and gets lost. Filled with guilt, Garfield sets out to the city to go find the slobbering dog and save him from an abusive and money hungry television celebrity named Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky).

The story itself sounds simple for this film, though its lack of charm and entertainment value has the film feeling longer than its under 90 minute running time. Writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow deliver a hollow script full of numerous pop culture references and weak antics. Garfield himself is somewhat like the way Davis’ conceived him, but in this film he is hardly likeable. The supporting animal roles, which include Odie and Nermal, are an absolutely wasted embarrassment to Davis’ original premise. There is also hardly any effective humor in this film, of course there are numerous lasagna jokes, but in this version Garfield relies more on burping to gain laughs, rather than clever cynicism. However, the worst creation in the script is the dreadful villain character of Happy Chapman.

It is also questionable as to why did director Peter Hewitt choose to have Garfield as completely computer generated, when all of the other animal characters are real, but have computer generated mouths when speaking, ala Cats and Dogs. The aspect of mixing real animals and special effects has been a wearied phase in Hollywood for about five years now, so why use it? Garfield speaking to the screen also may become confusing to kids, since he talks right in front of Jon, but his owner can not hear him. The special effects are also atrocious when either Jon or Liz picks up the CGI Garfield. The actors seemed not to know Garfield’s proportions with obvious white lines around their hands, where the effects where not polished. Hewitt’s direction is so uneven that it seems he ran out of time to tighten all of his choices. The atmosphere of Jon’s home among other things are not too bright either, in which one of Davis’ eminent choices of the comic strip were its vast colors.

Breckin Meyer is a solid choice to play Jon Arbuckle, he has the look for it, but his performance is lost. It almost seems that Meyer and love-interest co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt were sleepwalking through out this film. They were not given much to work with, and of course Hewitt has to run around the last twenty minutes of the film in a tight dress, even though she is educated veterinarian. Stephen Tobolowsky plays one of the worst bad guys in the history of family films as the annoyingly over the top television celebrity Happy Chapman.

Garfield: The Movie is a horrible film and a disgrace to the original creation by Jim Davis. Perhaps if this film was made in the early 90s it might have worked, but most of the aspects in this film are tired, such as the real-life animals with CGI moving mouths. Parents may be bored with this one, but will children still watch this film, sure they will.

Grade: C-

Joseph Tucker

Ignore the fact that this film should have been made at least 15 years ago and you might enjoy it. The humour is fairly stale and obvious, but only if you remember reading Garfield cartoons 15 years ago ... or if you're a demanding moviegoer. Kids will have a great time!

Jon (Meyer) is a cheery young guy living in a gorgeous house with his fat, lazy cat Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray--and no, the humans can't hear the animals' voices). Jon has a schoolboy crush on the local veterinarian hottie (Hewitt), and adopts the homeless pooch Odie to impress her. But this of course sends Garfield into spasms of panic as he plots how to get rid of the dog. Then Odie's kidnapped by a nutty TV presenter (Tobolowsky) and only Garfield can rescue him.

There's a consistent stream of humour that at least keeps our interest, even though the writers haven't bothered to be either inventive or clever. The comedy and plot are worn out before the movie even starts--derivative and predictable, although there are a few sharp zingers here and there, mostly due to Murray's vocal work (everything else is pretty bland). Alas, there are frequent corny action set pieces and a couple of astonishingly ill-conceived bits, the most gruesome of which has Garfield crooning a bluesy lament about Odie to the tune of New York State of Mind.

Oddly, all of the animals in the film are real except the extremely cartoonish Garfield. The effects that create him are sometimes impressive, but mostly fairly clunky, especially since we can never accept him interacting with the actual dogs, cats and rodents he enlists to help him--they're genuine but he's not! It's also strange that Odie is the only animal who never speaks. And that the humans are all so insipid. So when Murray gives one of the rather weak jokes an extra vocal kick, we find ourselves chuckling almost in desperation. And as a result, the film is surprisingly watchable. But only just.

Rich Cline

Garfield’s (Murray) life was pretty perfect. He had his owner John (Meyer) wrapped around his little paw, he ruled the cul-de-sac that he lives in, he could be as lazy as he wanted and eat his favourite lasagne all the time. Life couldn’t be much better for a cat. Everything changed with John’s potential sweetheart Liz (Love Hewitt) gave him a dog called Odie. Was the power in the Arbuckle household about to shift?

Jim Davis’s much loved comic strip and cartoon series receives the live action treatment but is Garfield going to make any friends? Yes, but only some very young ones.

Fans of the comic strip and TV show will be glad to hear that the filmmakers have got their favourite fat ginger cat just right but then thrown him into a terribly scripted movie. The plot really lets the film down as our lazy hero is forced to endure an almost pantomime like villain and a typically sugary sweet Hollywood treatment that would make him cough up his lasagne. Why the filmmakers didn’t get his creator Jim Davis to write the script we will never know.

Garfield himself is spot on, thanks to some fantastic computer animation and the voice of Bill Murray. Replacing the legendary Lorenzo Music, who sadly passed away in 2001, Murray brings Garfield’s dry wit and sarcasm to live with great skill. There just isn’t anyone else who could have voiced this much-loved character. The animation is first rate as CG Garfield effortlessly interacts with his environment and other cast members. Just watch his scenes with Odie on the chair and you will applaud the skills of the animators. That also applies to the rest of the animal cast. Some extremely well trained cats, dogs and rodents play them but the animation of their mouths and expressions is first rate.

Human cast is just there for show. Breckin Meyer doesn’t really have much to do as John Arbuckle and he just isn’t geeky enough to be Garfield terminally unlucky owner. Jennifer Love Hewitt is absolutely gorgeous but that just seems to be her career at the moment, nothing but eye candy. Stephen Tobolowsky does his best as Happy Chapman, the villainous TV presenter looking for his big break but he doesn’t have the lines to make him a credible bad guy.

Garfield is a movie made for younger children and they will get a lot of enjoyment from it. For everyone else who grew up with the cartoon and comic strip, even their favourite ginger cat can’t save the film’s unimaginative script and sugary Hollywood coating. Hire out the cartoon and have some lasagne instead.

Star Rating = * * * (For Kids under 10)

Star Rating = * * (for everyone else)

Jamie Kelwick

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Garfield and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.