{"id":59389,"date":"2024-06-03T20:30:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T00:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=59389"},"modified":"2024-06-03T20:30:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T00:30:26","slug":"the-garfield-movie-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2024\/06\/the-garfield-movie-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Garfield Movie \u2013 Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cGarfield and Friends,\u201d based on comic strips by Jim Davis, was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. With all due respect to the show\u2019s talented writers and other voice actors, the best thing about the show was Lorenzo Music\u2019s performance as the title tabby. Music\u2019s voice, which somehow always sounded like a yawn, was the perfect fit for a character that spent every waking moment wishing he wasn\u2019t awake. Yes, Garfield would engage in frenzied eating, especially of lasagna, but that was mostly handled with whooshing noises from the sound effects team. Otherwise, Garfield, with Music\u2019s voice, was the personification (cat-ification?) of laziness.<\/p>\n\n\n

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            I take this moment to applaud Music as Garfield because I have nothing but negative things to say about Chris Pratt as the character in \u201cThe Garfield Movie.\u201d The guy just doesn\u2019t have it in him to sound that lazy. It\u2019s not like he doesn\u2019t have experience playing lazy. He was always something of slacker as Star-Lord and his \u201cParks and Recreation\u201d character spent most of the first season milking an injury. But here, he always sounds like he\u2019s up for an adventure. The movie around him isn\u2019t much of a winner anyway, but it\u2019s already off on the wrong paw when Garfield doesn\u2019t sound like Garfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The story opens with a glimpse into Garfield\u2019s days as a kitten, when he was left in an alley by his father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) and found his way to Jon (Nicholas Hoult), his doormat of an owner. The household soon adds loyal dog Odie (Harvey Guillen, limited to dog noises) and the pets live in sedentary luxury. Of course, something has to happen to keep Garfield from enjoying complacency, and one night he finds himself cat-napped, as opposed to indulging in a cat nap. He and Odie are brought to a hideout where they meet the long-absent Vic. But Vic isn\u2019t their captor, he\u2019s very much on a short leash himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The operation is actually headed by feline crime boss Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) and her hench-cats Roland (Brett Goldstein) and Nolan (Bowen Yang). She has a vendetta against Vic for abandoning her during a milk heist at a farm (sadly not Jim Davis\u2019s \u201cU.S. Acres,\u201d though I would have loved that crossover) years earlier. But Vic can repay his debt if he, Garfield, and Odie can pull off the same heist now, with the farm having stronger security. The three reluctantly take on the assignment, even though Garfield and Odie are pampered housepets and Garfield and Vic\u2019s relationship is sorely strained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The rest of the movie is an adventure-comedy that could be filled by characters from any franchise with a spoiled lead lacking in skills and street smarts. The only thing that makes it recognizable as \u201cGarfield\u201d is that Odie, to the movie\u2019s credit, is as awesome as ever with his ingenuity and unwavering friendship. A few physical gags work, and there are some scene-stealing moments from the villains and a bull voiced by Ving Rhames (I took twisted delight in the very idea of the Arby\u2019s pitchman voicing future roast beef). But every time there\u2019s a string of solid gags or decent action, the miscast Pratt will open his mouth and I\u2019ll be reminded that this movie has a major flaw at a fundamental level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cThe Garfield Movie\u201d is mostly middling, brought down by how much Pratt pales in comparison to Lorenzo Music. At least it has the decency to be wholly animated, as opposed to the Bill Murray movies where the environment was live-action and Garfield was a CGI abomination. The new movie is never \u201cthat\u201d painful, but it doesn\u2019t strike me as anyone\u2019s best work either. I guess what I\u2019m saying is that this movie, while it could have been worse, is lazy \u2013 and not in a way that\u2019s on-brand for Garfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Garfield Movie\u201d is rated PG for action\/peril and mild thematic elements. Its running time is 101 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             \u201cGarfield and Friends,\u201d based on comic strips by Jim Davis, was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. With all due respect to the show\u2019s talented… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":59390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2700],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59391,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59389\/revisions\/59391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}