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Title: Garfield: The Movie
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I don't know about any of you guys, but Garfield has been my favorite comic strip for as long as I can remember (yes, I love it even more then "Peanuts"). I remember when I read my very first Garfield comic strip. I was a mere 5 years old at the time, and I remember that I opened my the newspaper, read Garfield, and laughed so hard I couldn't believe it. Ever since then I have read Garfield everyday without fail (no seriously, ask any of my friends)! And I'm not the only one who shares this love. For those of you who don't get out of the house very often, Garfield has been a household name for years (literally). Garfield made his first newspaper appearance on June 19th 1978, where he was in 40 newspapers each week. These days Garfield appears in over 2,600 newspapers, and roughly 4% of the world reads Garfield every morning. There have been about 13 Garfield TV specials made, with "A Garfield Christmas" becoming a holiday favorite next to "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer," and the special "Garfield on The Town" even winning an Emmy! The Saturday mourning CBS cartoon "Garfield & Friends" became CBS's biggest hit and had a healthy 7 season run, and it is considered one of the best kids shows ever created (and the re-runs still make rounds on local and cable channels to this day)!
Also tons of Garfield merchandise and books are sold everyday, which bring in $700 million to $1 billion each year! Today Garfield isn't just fat because of how much food he eats, he's fat on his worldwide success. With money like this, it was only natural that a Garfield movie be made at one point or another. Now thanks to CGI technology, Garfield is making the leap to the big screen in "Garfield: The Movie." To start off I would like to point out that one of the best things about "Garfield: The Movie" is that there is no real attempt at a story made. While many movies of these types tend fall to pieces because they take themselves too seriously, "Garfield: The Movie" knows that it should not be any more or any less spectacular then the comic strip it's based on. Heck, the story of this movie isn't even very different from Garfield's first TV special "Here Comes Garfield" (now available on DVD). The whole movie is about Garfield, Garfield, and Garfield. Garfield is just one big, fat, lazy cat. He loves to torture his loser for an owner Jon, he torments his pals Nermal and Luca, he sure does love to eat, and he HATES Mondays (for that matter so do I, but I hate Mondays for completely different reasons)!
Yep, this is Garfield's whole life in a nutshell, and he has no intention of changing it anytime soon. However that's not how Jon see's things. During a trip to the vet, Dr. Liz Wilson (the girl that Jon has had a crush on for years) convinces Jon to adopt a stray dog named Odie (who by the way looks NOTHING like his comic strip counterpart). At first Jon isn't completely keen on the idea of adopting another pet (his current pet gives him enough trouble as it is), but Jon is a love struck loser who will do anything to get his girl, so he agree's to take Odie in (much to Garfield's displeasure). Garfield however has no one he needs (or wants) to impress, so he vows to do everything he can to make Odie's life miserable. For awhile things seem to be going just fine for Garfield as he happily torments Odie to no end, and it looks like Garfield and Odie may even be starting to get along when they both dance to Black Eyed Pea's song "Hey Mamma" (a scene that is truly one of the most inspired scenes in the movie), however one day Odie wins a dog show, and before you know it Garfield is no longer the center of attention anymore. Well Garfield gets so mad at Odie that he locks the dog outside one night, and Odie being Odie starts chasing cars and gets himself completely lost. Feeling guilty about what he has just done, Garfield decides he must go find Odie and bring him home. That's all the story I'll get into in this review since that's all the story that really matters. There is a sub-plot about a TV show host who kidnaps Odie so that he can get a boost in ratings, but all the above is really just an excuse to connect one joke to another joke.
What really makes this movie is the running commentary by Garfield, who is brilliantly voiced by Bill Murry, who is taking over the voice for the late Lorenzo Music (and on a COMPLETELY unrelated note, with Ellen DeGeneres as Dory, Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, and now with Bill Murry as Garfield, the Academy Awards may REALLY want to consider giving out an Oscar for "Best Voice Work of The Year"). Garfield's witty banter shines in this movie, and its one joke after another, and all the way through you can't help but laugh along with all the dialog. In all honesty the dialog and the pranks are the only reason to see this movie, as they not only shine above the poor story, but they also remind you greatly of the comic strip this film is based on. Make no mistake about it, this movie gets Garfield right (even if they dropped the ball on a couple other things, but I'll get to that later). However because the film decides to focus more on the jokes over the substance of the movie itself, that leaves for a few problems. For starters I should point out that the CGI Garfield looks a little on the unfinished side. For the most part when you look as Garfield you can tell there was nothing there to begin with, and Garfield blends with the live action world very poorly sometimes.
Also when actors look at Garfield it's like they have no idea what they are supposed to be looking at sometimes. What's even worse is that for some unexplainable reason Garfield is the only fully CGI character in the movie. Odie, Nermal, Arlene, and all the other animals are played by real animals with only the minimum of CGI used to bring them to life. This is an even more jarring experience, as when the animals start to actually interact with Garfield the whole thing starts to look a little goofy, and one has to wonder why Fox didn't spend an extra $10 million to make the animals CGI too. Another thing I had a problem with was this little "moral" that Fox just couldn't resist putting into the movie. Without giving away too much of the ending (as if there was anything to give away), Garfield goes on this moral thing where he constantly reminds us that Odie is his friend, and that you should always cherish your friends no matter what. Well its all fine and good if you want to put in a moral I suppose, but come on, this is Garfield we're talking about! Since when does Garfield ever admit to even being nice much less give the audience a lesson about how great it is to be friends with someone? Oh well, I guess this IS a family film!
Now I mentioned above that this film got Garfield right, and this movie did. Despite Garfield looking a little funky he acts EXACTLY the way you'd expect him too, however that doesn't mean everyone else does. Even if you've only seen the previews I know that a lot of you Garfield fans are fearing that the film makers would make it so that Jon and Liz ended up in an actual relationship! Well I wish I could say that your fears were just that, fears, but I can't. Yes the filmakers GREATLY tampered with Liz's personality (not Jon's so much, I'll get to that in a minute)! In the comic strip Liz can't stand Jon. She hates him, couldn't care less if she never saw him again, and she loves tormenting Jon just as much as Garfield himself does. However in the movie not only does she talk nice to him, but she's actuallty had a crush on him since high school. Yes, I said high school. Did these two go to high school together? No. Am I going to make a deal out of this new twist like many other Garfield fan sites have? No, because this new twist is really not a big deal. Some people are making a big deal of Jon not being as big of a loser as he is in the comic strip, and while I do agree that they could have made Jon a little more of a loser I'm going to let it go a little bit.
Why? Because I recently rewatched some of the old Garfield TV specials, and I realized that Jon wasn't much a loser in the first four TV specials either...in fact, he wasn't even a loser at all in the early TV specials, so I'm at least grateful that the film makers at least attempted to make Jon a lovable loser. When all is said and done I must admit to liking "Garfield: The Movie" MUCH more then I thought I would! What I thought was going to be one big giant train wreck actually turned out to be a very enjoyable family film! If you don't like Garfield then chances are you might not like this movie as much, and chances are most Garfield purists will cry foul at some of the changes made in this movie (to which I say to go back to reading the comic strip if the changes bug you THAT much), but for the most part I think Garfield fans will enjoy themselves, and this is also a much better family film then you'd expect (on a side note I'm not even completely sure why the MPAA gave this movie a PG rating over the G). And before anyone tells me I'm being too kind, might I remind you of "The Cat In The Hat." Feel better yet? Thought so.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -