Honestly, the live-action CGI movies with Garfield are much better than this strangely titled film, which moves “the” word around. Instead of Garfield the Movie, it’s The Garfield Movie. It’s like someone at Sony Marketing was as lazy as this fat cat, and couldn’t think up another title.
Sadly, Chris Pratt cannot deliver everything I know this cat must be. He was okay in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but here, there’s just no excuse. The tonal quality, lack of sarcasm and not even an ounce of grump could be heard. Lorenzo Music is the definitive voice, and the only worthy successors before this recast was Frank Welker and Bill Murray.
With this latest, it seems to borrow from The Peanuts somewhat. Although the circumstances were different, the kitty and pup got separated from their parents. In both strips, they later found comfort in hearing from mom or pop much later in life. With the young feline, he simply wandered away and by the time pops returned, it was too late. I find it odd that Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) didn’t try chasing after the human who took his son away. That’s rather strange parenting.
Even though Jon was none the wiser, he should’ve looked around. As for whether the young Garfield would consider himself to have daddy issues, it hardly manifests when he finds pops running amok like an alley cat years later.
As for his relationship with Odie, it’s far different from what I recall. The feline loves tormenting the dog! If there are any gags, they were tremendously toned down. As a result, I didn’t think what’s presented is a Garfield story at all. None of the beats makes a lick of sense, and I feel what was written was meant for A Secret Life of Pets sequel rather than anything else.
Pratt and Jackson have some good banter, but it isn’t enough. I wanted my money back. As much as I don’t mind having the odd updated classic Sunday funnies being remade, it seems the studio wasn’t sure what to do when this movie lingered in development hell during the pandemic. The problem really lay with not having the right voice actor to headline this work. Just because Pratt survived being Mario doesn’t mean he can voice another cartoon character.
2 Stars out of 5
The Garfield Movie Trailer
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