Latest animated film The Garfield Movie is not exactly the cat's meow

The decline in newspaper readership in the 21st century has also resulted in comic strips becoming much less popular. Thanks to the fandom they accrued, however, some comic strip characters have endured, including everyone’s favorite lazy cat, Garfield. A testament to that lasting popularity is the mere existence of The Garfield Movie, the second attempt to bring him to the big screen following two previous horrendous animated/live action hybrid films, 2004’s Garfield: The Movie and 2006’s Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.

After watching this new computer-generated animated film, though, it might have been better to leave the characters to the funny pages. The film starts off showing Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) as we all know and love him: Hating Mondays, driving his owner Jon (Nicholas Hoult) and fellow pet Odie (Harvey Guillén) crazy, and eating lots of food, especially lasagna (however, in a shocking development, the first food he consumes on screen is a large pepperoni pizza).

The appearance of Garfield’s long-lost father, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), sends Garfield and Odie on a big adventure. It seems that Vic, in a milk heist gone wrong, sent a cat named Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) to jail, aka the pound. Now out, Jinx is looking for repayment of all the milk she missed out on during her five-year sentence. Garfield and Odie must help Vic break into a now well-protected milk factory, or Jinx and her dog goons will make them pay the price.

Directed by Mark Tindal and written by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgrove, and David Reynolds, the film contains very little in the way of charm or cleverness, and it all starts with the main cat himself. The previous two Garfield movies may have been bad, but they at least had the right idea in casting Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, as he brought a sarcasm that fits the character’s personality. Pratt’s voice lacks that certain element that keeps Garfield entertaining.

The mediocre nature continues into the story, which feels forced from the start. The introduction of Garfield’s heretofore unknown father is confusing (what about his mother?), and the “adventure” that makes up the bulk of the film is never interesting in the slightest. The filmmakers compound their storytelling mistakes by adding in the most obvious references ever, such as Garfield, Odie, and Vic sneaking into the milk factory while the Mission: Impossible theme song plays.

It’s here that some will say that “this movie is for kids, not adults,” and that’s true. But there are plenty of animated films that make the effort to not just play to the lowest common denominator, as this film does repeatedly. And because Garfield is a character who has existed since the 1970s, throwing a few bones to an older crowd that actually remembers seeing his hijinks in newspapers might have been warranted.

Pratt isn’t the only actor who doesn’t wow with his voice performance. Jackson has one of the most distinctive voices in the industry, but it’s subdued within a character who doesn’t bring much to the table. Waddingham, as she did in The Fall Guy, gets to dial it up as the villain, and at least she and Ving Rhames as henchman Otto appear to be having some fun. And if anyone can tell me why it makes sense to cast a Brit like Hoult to affect a high-and-whiny American accent as Jon, I would appreciate the insight.

Time will tell as to whether The Garfield Movie will resonate with a generation that has no real history with the character. But since the filmmakers appear to have put little effort into making the film broadly appealing, there’s not much hope that it will be a lasting love.

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The Garfield Movie is now playing in theaters.