The Garfield Movie Review

The loveable ginger cat Garfield makes his third appearance in a theatrical film. This reboot sees Garfield move back into the field of animation and sees an all-star voice cast in a heist adventure.

As a kitten Garfield (Chris Pratt) was abandoned by his father, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson). Luckily he adopted Jon Arbuckle (Nicholas Hoult) and he lives the life of a pampered house cat. Garfield’s cosy life gets disputed when he gets abducted by the criminal cat Jinx (Hannah Waddingham), and she forces Garfield and Odie to work with Vic to steal from a heavily guarded milk farm.

Garfield has been an enduring property. It has lasted 45 years in comic strips, cartoons, and films. I grew up watching Garfield and Friends in the ‘90s. However, most of Garfield’s media have been short, sharp affairs. The comic strip in newspapers were only two or three panels and the episodes of the show were 10 minutes long. The ginger tabby’s story were small-scale, domestic affairs, they didn’t lend themselves well to a longer form of storytelling, as shown by the live-action films. The Garfield Movie was a heist film that starred Garfield rather than a Garfield film.

The Garfield Movie was a film geared towards younger audiences. It was filled with slapstick humour, with Garfield getting hurt a lot since he was taken out of his comfort zone. Odie got an intelligence upgrade as he often acted as the smartest character in the room, despite being unable to speak. Odie reacted with exasperation and eye-rolling and he acted a lot like Gromit from Wallace & Gromit. Wallace & Gromit is awesome, so I am hardly complaining. There were jokes involving phone calls which did make me laugh. When Garfield described his life with John and Odie it sounded like many cat videos online where the cat claims to be the one in charge. There’s no denying that Garfield as a kitten was adorable because of his small stature, big eyes, and fuzzy fur. The Garfield Movie did use some real-life cat videos which some people may say was lazy, but I love cats and I’m happy to watch them on the big screen.

This version of Garfield did have some compassion. He cared for John even if he didn’t want to admit it, and it was nice to see Garfield being friends with Odie, not seeing him as that idiot fleabag that the cat often pranked. The film was trying an emotional story involving Garfield and Vic’s reunion and Vic slowly tried to gain Garfield’s trust. This was a predictable story but that’s due to the filmmakers thinking it’s only for kids, they don’t need to make anything complex. The Garfield Movie didn’t have the emotional richness of recent family films like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Wonka, or IF.

The Garfield Movie was filled with tragic backstories. Besides Garfield being abandoned as a kitten, Vic explained why he abandoned his son and two other characters were also defined by their tragedy. It ended up being comical because it was so overblown.

Garfield is the fourth animated role for Chris Pratt. He did a great job in The LEGO Movie and surpassed expectations in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Pratt was earnest in those films, especially as Emmett, whilst as Garfield he was a more sadistic, self-centred character. However, Pratt’s Garfield came across as smarmy and his voice didn’t fit the character. The live-action films were poorly received but Bill Murray’s grumpy, sarcastic demeanor fitted the character better.

The Garfield Movie was one of those animated films where it seemed like the casting director’s mission was to get the biggest names they could, hence why it had Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Hoult, and Ving Rhames who were in the voice cast. This was a film that had What We Do in the Shadows’ Harvey Guillén vocalising Odie and Snoop Dogg in one scene. Brett Goldstein and Bowen Yang had the most entertaining roles as Jinx’s henchmen, whilst Cecily Strong’s role as Marge the security guard felt similar to Police Chief Luggins in The Bad Guys. Hannah Waddington has had a big 2024 considering she has already been The Fall Guy. She’s cashing in on her Ted Lasso success.

The Garfield Movie was standard kids’ fare. It was cute and able to provide a few laughs for adults and children, but Garfield purists will be hostile towards this film.