‘The Garfield Movie’ review: They really screwed the pooch

The Garfield Movie has more in common with Mondays than it does a tasty lasagna, and the whole Chris Pratt thing really doesn’t help.

---

As someone who has constantly shifted through Garfield fandom throughout the past few, err, decades (both sincerely and ironically), I was met with both amused and concerned skepticism at the prospect of a feature-length animated movie from Sony Pictures. Certainly, as seen in its banal 2004 live-action feature, Garfield: The Movie and its dire sequel, the amusingly titled (but otherwise intolerable) Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, Garfield doesn’t easily transition to silver screen idol. Jim Davis’ enduring cartoon cat debuted on the funny pages in 1978, where he’ll likely live as long as newspapers are still a thing, and there’s a reason why he only lives in 3-6 panels a day. 

What’s amusing or at least tolerable about Garfield often comes in moderation. He’s a chunky, lazy cat who loves lasagna, hates Mondays, and has a world-weary relationship with his dorky human owner, Jon Arbuckle. That’s how it’s been for 50 years, and gosh darn it, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it will be for another 50 to come. Garfield isn’t an artistic endeavor at this point; he’s a cultural monopoly who’s rigged the system in his fat favor. And given how commercial the whole Garfield enterprise is these days, it was only a matter of time before Davis and Company decided to bring the orange feline back to theaters.

How Garfy met Jonny.

So what’s perhaps most intriguing, frustrating, and appealing about 2024’s The Garfield Movie are the myriad ways in which it both honors and shies away from the central foundations of the corporate mainstay’s core components. It’s at least the most and least faithful Garfield movie to date — which isn’t necessarily saying much given its competition, but that still says a lot. 

The Garfield Movie, as one would expect, centers around Garfield, the tubby tabby who loves to lounge around the house, consume copious amounts of food, and live a simple, indulgent life. Played here by Chris Pratt, voice actor ordinare, the familiar puss is much more boisterous and high-energy than we have ever seen him before. Compared to Lorenzo Music, the best to ever do it, and most especially Bill Murray, an actor who seeped his contempt for the project so viciously that it almost worked in the idle feline’s favor, Pratt gives the titular cat the Andy Dwyer treatment — he’s slothful and slack, but he’s also not nearly as mean or arrogant as we once knew him to be.

Garfield has a, dare I say it, healthy relationship with his furry friend, Odie, and he’s even sweet to his cartoonish owner (oddly but not notably voiced by Nicholas Hoult). This is a much more sanitized, sanctioned version of the cartoon cat, which makes for an admittedly odd departure from the prideful and pithy character we all know from what seems to be countless comics. 

A dish best served old.

But when an unexpected person from his sorry past, his distant father Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson), wreaks havoc in his life and forces him to embark on a milk-gathering mission on the behest of the vicious ex-con, Jinx (voiced by Hannah Waddingham), Garfield has to do what he’s never done before: search his feelings and find forgiveness for his father. Why has he never done this before? Because why would he? Garfield isn’t a character tormented by the grief and trauma of his neglectful patriarch. He’s a character who neglects to leave a plate of lasagna full! 

The screenplay — by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgrove, and David Reynolds — makes this curious plot choice somewhat sweet-natured and even emotionally tender at times, but you have to wonder why it was included here in the first place. Earlier this year, I saw Garfield: The Musical, a stage production that was co-written (or, maybe, “co-written” by Jim Davis), that felt more akin to what I imagine a Garfield movie to be: Garfield, feeling abandoned in his Monday birthday, decides that Jon no longer wants him and forges to become an outdoor cat, much to his lazy chagrin. It’s not rocket science, but it felt like a Garfield show…with music nonetheless!

Here, in The Garfield Movie, we’re watching something with amusing visual gags, inspired set pieces, and plushy animation. Still, it’s all at the service of a narrative that’s intriguingly unsuited for this famous fat feline. 

Garfield and…friends?

And then there are the added characters: Vic and Jinx, as mentioned, but also Otto, voiced by Ving Rhames, a lovelorn bull who mentors the cats, Marge Malone, voiced by Cecily Strong, who is inspired by Frances McDormand’s character of the same name from Fargo (for whatever odd reason) and vows to make sure nobody sneaks into the farm, among others. For Garfield fans like myself, you’ll be wondering why Arlene doesn’t factor into the plot at all, or why Nermal and Liz, two mainstays of the comic’s generation-spanning iconography, make fleeting cameos. 

Compound all that with the movie’s intensive technological inputs (apps and drones factor quite heavily), overzealous slapstick humor, and generally overbearing attempts at emotion and you start to wonder if Davis even oversaw this production in the first place. Maybe if we had gotten several other, very good Garfield movies on the big screen, these choices would’ve been less egregious, but in Garfield’s first feature-length animated movie, they become downright bizarre. 

So, why did I say that The Garfield Movie is also, perhaps, the most faithful Garfield movie to date? Partially due to the process of elimination, and how much those live-action movies failed to live up to the standards of Davis’ cynical cartoons, and partially due to how much this movie does, in the right moments, rejuvenate a long-dormant franchise into something silly, appealing, and sickly sweet.

A stomachache of a movie.

Garfield, the cartoon, has become rote in its structuring and comedic styling, but there are choice moments when it’ll surprise you will swaths of dark, absurd, outlandish, or downright surrealistic humor. It would be giving The Garfield Movie too much credit to assume that its misplaced story beats and broad, wacky humor were always trying to honor that spirit. 

But director Mark Dindal (The Emperor’s New Groove) has often showcased a great talent for playing against expectations in his better work, and perhaps that’s what makes The Garfield Movie, at its best moments, disarming or appealing in how it appeals to the comic’s more eager and inspired earlier years, particularly concerning the cartoon series that it seems indebted to more than the actual day-to-day comics. It rewards fans of the cartoon series more, at least. 

Chris Pratt is inherently wrong for Garfield; I don’t think I’m saying anything new. But also, I can see why they wanted to cast someone like him to play a younger, more high-spirited version of this character. In a perfect world, another Parks and Recreation alum, Nick Offerman, would’ve lent his voice chops to this role. But the type of Garfield movie that appeals to the comic’s history, with an older, grumpier, more indifferent to the world around him cat, would’ve likely never been greenlit by a modern studio.

The bottom line.

What we see here with Garfield is inherently the Ted Lasso-ing of Garfield. It’s more well-rounded, more wholesome, more good-natured in humor and tone, while also being willing to tackle heavy subject matter with a sensitive, delicate hand.

Does that make it right for the material? No, but I can see why it got made. The Garfield Movie isn’t the Garfield movie for me, but then again, what is the Garfield movie for long-term fans like myself? Should we have to settle for something this inherently medicore when we know that the alternative could be far, far worse? Perhaps. But in an age of hypomanic kids entertainment, it can seem like a small blessing when something like this doesn’t rely on the Forenite dance or Garfield dabbing or some pandering nonsense of that sort.

Garfield was always a sell-out and it would only be fitting if his latest movie appealed to common trends. It’s a Garfield movie for the times, but is there a place for Garfield in the modern age? Much like newspapers, probably not. 

The Garfield Movie is now playing in theaters. Watch the trailer here.

---

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing. Read more articles by Will Ashton here.