The Garfield Movie, 2024.
Directed by Mark Dindal.
Featuring the voice talents of Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Guillén, Nicholas Hoult, Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Ving Rhames, Cecily Strong, Janelle James, Snoop Dogg, Dev Joshi, Lynsey Murrell, Alicia Grace Turrell, and Luke Cinque-White.
SYNOPSIS:
After Garfield’s unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.
Garfield lives the good life. This is not only made clear by showing us the orange tabby’s (Chris Pratt doing little to differentiate his voice and capture the spirit of the beloved comic strip character) pampered life alongside his canine companion and loyal servant Odie (Harvey Guillén) provided to the pets by their wonderfully devoted owner Jon Arbuckle (voiced by Nicholas Hoult) but also through a song by award-winning musician Jon Batiste that repeats the phrase over and over during the multiple times it is played in The Garfield Movie.
It’s the first sign that director Mark Dindal (using a screenplay from Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds, based on characters created by Jim Davis) has crafted something simplistic meant to distract children rather than stimulate their minds alongside the fun. Adults shouldn’t bother, as once the film begins with Garfield speaking to the audience like classic Nickelodeon cartoons, it’s apparent that this is strictly for kids. That’s not necessarily a fault, but the filmmakers have no ambitions beyond telling a standard story of a son and father reunited, with the former coming to understand that he wasn’t intentionally abandoned and that the latter has always loved him.
The Garfield Movie uses that premise to launch the characters into an outdoor adventure, bringing them to a dairy farm, which occasionally feels like it was chosen as a location to potentially teach children about some cruel realities regarding farm animal life and briefly does at one point even if the sudden short burst of cartoonish but startling animal abuse that feels tonally inconsistent with the rampant silliness. However, the film doesn’t seem interested in saying anything, typically quick to jump back to bickering and unsuccessful attempts at thrills and moving family dynamics.
Kidnapped by a pair of dog henchmen working for a wronged, vengeful British cat, Jinx (voiced by Hannah Waddingham), Garfield and Otis are used as leverage to force the former’s long-lost father and her former partner in crime, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson, who seems to be hiding his usual voice to sound like Chris Pratt, even if it tends to slip up from time to time) out of hiding, with the three embarking on a Mission: Impossible-style heist to steal a quart of milk for every day she was stuck in the pound at the expense of the big cat’s mistake. Along the way, they team up with a mad bull with a flare for the dramatic, Otto (voiced by Ving Rhames), separated from the love of his life, who is continuously tortured for milk while the dairy farm now gives public tours to children.
Except for a perilous sequence that sees Garfield’s favorite thing in the world, food, transformed into part of a dangerous obstacle, there is little imagination or thrust to the break-in. Likewise, the emotional beats are also rushed and generic, with the filmmakers seemingly uncertain if they wanted to strictly tell an origin story from Garfield’s childhood or one with the version of the lasagna-obsessed cat people already know and love. The majority is familiar fare regarding Garfield resisting the truth and affection from his father, all while Otto desperately tries to train and prepare them enough to get on the same page and rescue his precious. Meanwhile, Odie laughs at the shenanigans, whereas Jon increasingly gets funnily frustrated as he is endlessly put on hold in a waiting line while calling a service to help locate his pets.
There is some occasional visual pop blending 2D and 3D animation while also mimicking the look of a comic strip, although, beyond that, the environments and character models are mostly plain. As expected, the jokes lean into Garfield’s insatiable appetite (at one point, using food delivery drones to aid him on a rescue mission in a slightly clever segment), which is fine, but the aspects of what makes the character the one we know and care about all feel frontloaded and then tossed to the side to focus on a forgettable heist. Why not have a running gag that this disaster of a day is happening on a Monday? Sometimes, Garfield will have an amusing quippy comeback, but these are otherwise bland voiceover performances, save for the villains, who at least get to be loud and chaotic.
The rest of the humor is eye-rolling, shoving in everything from jokes about “Catflix” to cows in the mood for love (a payoff that comes with an overplayed, overdone needle drop.) Even the filmmakers haven’t bothered to put too much thought into what they are throwing up on the screen, as during an action scene that sees Garfield ricocheting off trees and other objects, he ends up on a parade float of himself, yet doesn’t seem to be iconic or famous in this universe. He is an ordinary cat in a film trying too hard to play up cuteness. Sadly, The Garfield Movie is also ordinary in the soulless Hollywood IP way. Garfield might be living the good life, but this is not a good movie.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
