Garfield: The Movie review

Turning an old comic strip about the ultimate sour puss into a full-length feature film obviously seemed like a good idea to someone. Perhaps an executive whose childhood memories of Jim Davis' "fat lazy cat" were clouded by nostalgia. If that's the case, it would only take a few moments viewing of Garfield:The Movie to convince them otherwise. Unless the sight of a dancing dog is entertainment enough, there's precious little here to raise a smile on any but the youngest face and then only too rarely. Even the droll tones of Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield fail to imbue the annoying moggie with any appeal.

While great pains may have been taken to render the digitally animated orange cat a cuddly 3D version of the newsprint Garfield, his insertion into his live action world is anything but seamless. Though here the term "live action" almost seems a contradiction in terms with the performances being riddled with rigor mortis. Brekin Meyer is cringingly insipid as Garfield's owner Jon while Jennifer Love Hewitt as the veterinarian Liz is called upon to do little more than smile. Quite what possessed all concerned to climb aboard the train wreck that is Garfield: The Movie is a mystery.

They may have thought that in writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, the pair responsible for Toy Story, they were in good hands. Sadly, though, they were wrong. The flimsy plot is the standard one, seen all too often and most recently in Stuart Little, involving a household that introduces a new pet, much to the chagrin of the existing one. In this instance the resident is the overweight lethargic lasagne-munching Garfield. His pampered life is thrown into disarray when Jon, in a gesture to win Liz's affections, adopts the homeless hound Odie.

Turns out Odie (a dachshund/cairn terrier by the name of Tyler) is a disco dancing dog with a neat line in hopping and spinning on his little hind legs, tricks the filmmakers exploit to their fullest in the absence of anything else funny. The mean-spirited and grouchy Garfield makes Odie feel anything but welcome. Only when Odie runs away does Garfield raise a brief smile before he's overcome by an uncharacteristic pang of guilt and sets out to find him.

Armed with a funnier script and surrounded by some more endearing creatures, human and animal, things might have been more palatable, but when all the emphasis is put on one character and that character is just plain irritating, there's little respite. When one cat quickly tires of Garfield's constant banter and cries out, "Will you please, please be quiet," you knew how they felt.