The Garfield Movie Review

Ah Garfield. The dead-beat dad of the Sunday morning paper. He was popular once, but years of resting on their laurels has made him nothing but a some-what sad joke. Anyway this movie looked bad. Real cookie cutter, bland, kids fare honestly. It did look better than the Bill Murray ones, but almost anything is better that the Bill Murray Garfield movies. I shudder thinking about those horrible eyes. 

What's The Movie About?

Garfield and Odie involved in a heist of a dairy farm because of Garfield's dad and an insane Persian. Persian cat, not a person from Persia. 

What I Like.

Dudes, what the fuck. This movie is actually really good. For starters, this movie is hilarious. Not every joke lands (and all the worst jokes are either awful cat puns or jokes where the punchline is "Modern gadgets sure exist, huh.") but there's a good 4/5 of comedy that is quick and hilarious. The only pauses in the comedy are for just for visual gags that look like they could've been pulled straight from the comic strip. There is a lot of background gags, admittedly some those awful puns, and the physical comedy is no slouch either. I was guffawing a whole lot more than I ever thought I would. And the movie has some really good emotional moment too. I really like Vic, Garfield's dad and his story was great. All the voice acting (with one notable exception) was great too.  Animation is a bit simple, but it is perfect for a Garfield movie since it looks like the simple comic strips, just with more backgrounds and slight texture detail on character. The movie isn't afraid to make fun of itself as well, which I always appreciate, and it is perfect to establish not taking the world too seriously. Funnily enough though, the worldbuilding is much more consistent at following its rules that IF, the kids movie that came out the week before. 

What I Didn't Like.

Act surprised when I say that my only issue with this movie is Chris Pratt. He's not horrendous in the movie, there are a couple line deliveries where I thought to myself, "That line kinda sounds close to what Garfield should sound like." But he does not blend with the character, unlike every other actor in the movie. I wasn't as initially dismissive of Chris Pratt as most others. I think he's a good voice actor actually, but here's the actual problem. Chris can only play 3 kinds of characters: the Goofball, the Everyman, and the Generic Action Hero. And Garfield is a Boor stereotype. He's supposed to be dry and sarcastic, uncaring because of either laziness or pride. They do give Garfield more goofy lines presumably in an attempt to make it work better. Didn't work. Funnily enough, the movie makes a bunch of jokes about Mission Impossible (I mean, Ving Rhames plays a mastermind) so I wonder if the film makers wanted Tom Cruise to be the lead. I could actually see that working pretty good. 

Final Summation.

I feel undercut here. The Garfield Movie is good, but it's not so good that I'm super excited to tell you all about it. There's not really a lesson to learn in relation to this movie either. I guess I can end with this joke: I came out of the Garfield Movie higher than Furiosa. Not because it's a better movie, good lord no. But I had expectations about the quality of Furiosa that it met, while I had no expectations for Garfield and it vastly succeeded them. 

So which is better, IF or this movie. Eh.... The problem here is that the Garfield Movie and IF are good for different reasons. IF was more imaginative (of course it was) and has a better message for kids, while Garfield is more structurally competent and would definitely be more entertaining for the parents. Honestly... If you can double feature them, go ahead. They are both less than 2 hours. Otherwise I'm leaning towards IF.

Anyway, chalk another notch up for a movie I thought was gonna suck actually being kinda awesome. This has lowkey been one of the best parts of this whole 'watch everything that comes out' experience.