Garfield: The Movie (1/2 star)
review by Jon Waterman

You’ve seen him in the paper. You’ve seen him on TV. You’ve seen him in car windows. You’ve never seen him like this. America’s favorite fat cat is now in movie form. Garfield, the lovable, egocentric feline hits the big screen by means of computer-generated effects. What a horrible way to introduce a character to a medium. Quick story summary and we’ll be on our way: Garfield’s owner Jon tries to win the heart of the veterinarian Liz by adopting a dog. The new pet, Odie, quickly takes over Garfield’s house and wins Jon’s affection. How can Garfield get rid of Odie and regain his position as top animal.

There’s more to it than that, but on the off chance you still want to see the film after I’m done here, I don’t want to ruin everything about it.

First, let’s start with the most noticeable: Garfield is an effect. He’s gone the way of Scooby-Doo. What makes this particular choice baffling is that no other animal in this film gets the computer treatment. The rest of them get the “Babe” effect of human mouths on trained animals. It just doesn’t look right to do something different for one than the rest. And worse off, Odie isn’t CG. Normally, a lack of CG would be great, but not when you’re talking about a unique-looking cartoon character such as Odie. Nowhere to be found are the elongated neck and tongue with big floppy ears and humongous eyes all on top of a teensy torso that make him so fun. Garfield mostly looks like Garfield. I think there’s too much detail. It’s strange to say that, but, if every single hair wasn’t noticeable and if the fat rolls and pouches weren’t as realistic, he’d probably be better to look at and more like the character we all know.

The effects must have cost a lot, because they hide our protagonist whenever possible such as inside boxes, under rugs, etc. One more reason not to use a fake cat. When they are used in full force, it’s basically just to show off how they figured out to manipulate real life objects with a non-existent entity. If there’s anything I hate more than useless CG, it’s useless CG used uselessly.

The movie is far from true to the comic roots, or even the television show roots for that matter. Jon isn’t really established as a lovable loser. He seems pretty well off and Liz seems to have a crush on him (another no-no in the comic strip). Nermal isn’t cute or hated. Arlene isn’t Garfield’s girlfriend. The names are the same, but the rest is pretty much not. There’s a lot from the established material that could have been worked from. Instead of a dog trainer named Happy, why not use Binky the Clown as the TV personality. That would have been a kick to see. Or, they could have used one of the television specials as a springboard. Those were fun. More fun than this.

Despite it’s faithfulness to the original material, the movie was just plain boring. And not funny. Bill Murray takes over for the late Lorenzo Music as the voice of the big orange fluff ball (just as Music took over for Murray as the voice of Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters cartoon). Murray fails to capture the same attitude and dryness he’s known for. There doesn’t seem to be any passion in the delivery and not much of his obvious acting talent is on display here. Lorenzo Music is truly missed.

I just want to quickly mention that I found the Billy Joel “New York State of Mind” rip-off to be very unoriginal and thoughtless. If you’re going to have a stupid, pointless song (Murray phones in his singing, too), at least create an original one. Why do a parodied version of a well-known song?

I think I’ve pretty much made my point. Now, besides not looking for a true-to-form adaptation, don’t look for a funny movie. The audience I was with was comprised of a lot of seemingly bored children. They didn’t laugh at the typically stupid, guaranteed stuff. One parent was trying to cajole her son into laughing to no avail. There’s just not much here to like. I’d stay home and watch some “Garfield and Friends” cartoons. Speaking of which, when are we going to get a “U.S. Acres” movie?

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