Movie Review: The Garfield Movie 5-25-24
Based on the world-renowned comic strip, The Garfield Movie is about an orange overweight cat named Garfield, who loves Italian food, hates Mondays, and often annoys his owner Jon Arbuckle. One day, Garfield gets kidnapped by stray dogs and encounters his long-lost father Vic. Now, in order to spare his life from the dastardly feline Jinx, Garfield, Odie, and Vic must break into a dairy farm to steal 1,600 bottles of milk.
Much like The Super Mario Bros Movie from last year, The Garfield Movie deserves more than just 37% on Rotten Tomatoes with an art style that sticks faithfully to Jim Davis’ work, a good score from John Debney, voice acting from Chris Pratt that matches the wit of Lorenzo Music’s Garfield, and a good amount of Easter Eggs to Garfield lore.
And now to point out the elephant-foot sandwich* in the room: The story. So far, people have been criticizing The Garfield Movie for deviating away from the comic strips. If you ask me, however, this movie is a lot closer to the Phil Roman Garfield TV specials along with the forgotten show Garfield and Friends. On those programs, Garfield, Odie, and Jon would embark on many crazy misadventures, such as fighting a mutant plant, Garfield being mistaken for a sabretooth tiger, meeting a 110-year-old man on Halloween night, fighting off alien puppets, being chased by a panther that escaped from the zoo, and even being brainwashed (except for Garfield) by a dinosaur who painted himself pink! If you ask me, a dairy farm heist doesn’t sound too farfetched to what Garfield has done in the past.
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| Chedder, one of my 26 favorite types of cheeses. |
If I were to complain about one thing, I felt that the movie was a bit too long. The movie spends a lot of time on the relationship between Garfield and Vic, and even though it’s emotionally satisfying in the end, there’s a lot that could’ve been cut out. Not to mention that Vic himself doesn't have that much of a backstory aside from Garfield.
In conclusion, even though not as good as what he’s done in the 80s and 90s, The Garfield Movie is good for a rainy day. You have to admit that it's better than Garfield's LAST feature film.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.
*In the Garfield and Friends episode ‘Orson’s Diner’, Orson and Wade set up a diner in which whatever they cannot serve, the customer can eat free for a month. Roy challenges Orson and Wade to make an elephant foot sandwich, which they don’t have. Luckily, a circus truck loses an elephant. However, Orson and Wade don’t want to cut his foot off, so they decide to befriend the elephant until the circus brings him back.
