Review of Garfield (2004) by Sheila N — 11 Feb 2010

I like Garfield. I always liked him as a kid and I still get a chuckle out whenever I catch one of the comics. And of course, who didn't love the cartoon from the 80's. So when there was a movie coming out I was like "About damn time!". Sure the trailers weren't that impressive but it was Garfield...coming to the big screen...with Bill Murray voicing Garfield! So was my inner child happy or was it angry and throwing a temper tantrum? Let's find out as we eat some lasagna to Garfield: The Movie.

So you all know the story of Garfield. He's fat, he lives with his owner Jon Arbuckle who has a crush on totally hot vet Liz, and he loves lasagna, a lot. Anyways, Liz knows that Jon is a good owner and wants to give him Odie, that lovable dumb dog. Garfield sees this as a betrayal and locks him out of the house one night. Odie then wanders the city until he gets into the evil hands of Happy Chapman, pet food person, who finds out that Odie can dance and wants to exploit him. After a while, Garfield feels bad and goes out to rescue him.

So the real question is how well it actually captures the comic and it does so pretty well. Breckin Meyer has that nerdy charm that makes Jon Arbuckle....Jon Arbuckle. Jennifer Love Hewitt may not be the perfect Liz but in those tight dresses that show off her ass so well....I can care less. As for Bill Murray, he's fine but he's a bit too animated and too active in his role. I heard that Steven Wright would be a good fit and I can't really argue there....but we could do a lot worse than Bill Murray.

Now I'm not the type of guy to say "Insert Name Here, what has Hollywood done to you" but Nermal, what has Hollywood done to you?! Why aren't you cute? Why aren't you gray? Why are you voiced by some black guy who isn't cute? Why aren't you cute?!!!! Which kinda leads me to my biggest complaint. Only Garfield is CGI animated and the rest are real animals with animated mouths. It just doesn't look right. It's quite weird to see one person hold a real animal and then the same person holds Garfield and you can tell there's a difference in how they're holding each animal. Also, every time Garfield sings and/or dances you can use that as a bathroom break since it's pretty stupid and really sad.

So this is a cute children's movie and it does the Garfield comics justice. Granted, there isn't much justice in the strips but the movie pulls it off. The real life actors do decent job. Jennifer Love Hewitt hasn't been this hot since I Know What You Did Last Summer. Bill Murray may be a bit miscast but he is mostly fine in this. If you ever liked the comics this won't be so bad. If you only liked the cartoon...eh, you probably won't.