The Big Picture

It feels less and less like a
Garfield
movie as the scenes pass.
Chris Pratt doesn’t do much voice acting. Garfield is just … Chris Pratt?
Even for a kids-only movie that’s not shooting for Pixar-level quality, it isn’t very pleasant.

Some animated children’s movies are fun for the whole family—The Garfield Movie is not one of them. The Emperor’s New Groove director Mark Dindal tries to spin Jim Davis’ world-famous orange tabby cat into a Looney Tunes knockoff, trading dry-and-droll trademarks for a lighter sense of humor. Writers Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds cobble together an origin story that plays like a thousand made-for-kids tales prior, lacking that Pixar ingenuity that transcends age demographics. As a result, the film is a dreadfully unfunny take on Garfield’s signature sauce-slathered antics. The Garfield Movie is silly to a fault, feels seventeen hours long, and lacks any pulse of life.

The Garfield Movie Garfield is about to go on a wild outdoor adventure. After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – the cat Vic – Garfield and Odie are forced to abandon their pampered life to join Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist.Release Date May 24, 2024 Director Mark Dindal Writers jim davis , Paul A. Kaplan , David Reynolds

Chris Pratt steps into his second major voice acting role for an established character, but alters nothing about his delivery to become Garfield. Bill Murray at least sounds like a lazy housecat whose sole purpose is hating Mondays and eating lasagna (in Garfield: The Movie and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties). Pratt is distractingly Pratt, which kills momentum as early as the opening monologue, where Garfield speaks directly to the audience without tingles of energy. Say what you will about Pratt’s Mario voice, but at least he embraced a few tweaks to become an Italian plumber. Pratt’s Garfield is just Pratt reading words off a page, which can be as exciting as listening to Pratt read a pizzeria’s Uber Eats menu.

What Is ‘The Garfield Movie’ About?

We meet Garfield as a scared and abandoned kitten, drawn to Jon Arbuckle (voiced by Nicholas Hoult) by the scent of a freshly baked pizza (why it’s not lasagna isn’t worth pondering). Garfield’s cozy domesticated life with Jon is recreated on-screen through a series of comic panels turned flashed images, staying consistent with canon. That’s until Garfield and Odie (barks provided by Harvey Guillén) are kidnapped by a jewelry-wearing Persian cat known as Jinx (voiced by Hannah Waddingham) and reunited with Garfield’s biological father, Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson). It turns out Vic got Jinx thrown in the pound, and she wants vengeance in the form of stolen milk from heavy-guarded dairy provider Lactose Farms. Garfield, Odie, and Vic must pull off Jinx’s heist or face Jinx’s claws-out wrath.

The Garfield Movie ditches Davis’ deadpan approach and Garfield’s lethargic personality for conventional heist movie tropes jammed through a kiddie-friendly lens. Garfield’s treated like a Bugs Bunny type (perhaps more Daffy Duck), getting launched by trees made of rubber or munching on industrial-sized mountains of cheddar in the dairy farm’s processing facility. It hardly feels like a Garfield movie, more a boardroom-voted combination of familiar beats and repetitive storytelling refitted for the umpteenth time. Children won’t mind; they’re here for the pretty colors and silly kitty doing people things, but adults are in for an uncomfortably numbing experience.

The Garfield Movie builds around Garfield and Vic’s repaired relationship, which is the impetus for everything, yet their rekindled bond isn’t worth watery eyes. Voice performances are hardly fine-tuned beyond Pratt’s sonically stale interpretation of Garfield; there’s no movie magic present. Animated characters aren’t fleshed out beyond their pixelation, and most voice performers struggle to transform into the roles they’re playing. It sounds like Samuel L. Jackson, not Vic. Or Hannah Waddingham, not Jinx. Snoop Dogg playing “Snoop Cat” is a cheesy bit, but even his voice can’t fully cash in on the vocal gag. Dindal’s voice actor directing seems out of calibration, which sinks the entire production.

The Animation in ‘The Garfield Movie’ Is Nothing Special

Sony’s animation department replicates cartoony design styles in releases like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Open Season, while also leaning into the comic-drawn nature of Davis’ newspaper frames. It’s slick enough, but also nothing outstandingly spectacular. Sony titles like The Mitchells vs. The Machines or Spider-Verse movies are visual feasts, whereas The Garfield Movie never truly dazzles. The attempt to recreate hand-drawn sketches in a three-dimensional world looks chunky, blocky at times, and perspectively flat. It’s just one more element that feels underserved in a movie that continually and frustratingly underachieves.

Are there cute moments? A handful. How can you not love an adorable fuzzball kitten finding his family or Odie saving Garfield with a novelty-sized string cheese lasso? Nevertheless, the film otherwise buries what works underneath a “kid’s movie” dusted with grated parmesan. Everything appears wonky and insincere. Dialogue lands without any reaction from the audience, laughs are nearly non-existent, and editing feels robotically mechanical—it’s such a shame. The Garfield Movie is a soulless husk of a reboot that doesn’t do anything remarkable except for maybe Odie’s shenanigans (Odie remains innocent).

The Garfield Movie REVIEWThe Garfield Movie is sloppy like a plate of lasagna made by an Italian imposter, lacking the flavor and layered deliciousness that makes the dish worthwhile.ProsOdie is a good boy.There are a scant amount of jokes that do work.The animators sure do sell the hell out of Italian dishes. ConsThe voice cast all have their struggles with Chris Pratt just being himself.There?s a flatness to the imagery.It?s a slog of an experience that will have adult chaperones glancing at their watches five minutes in.

The Garfield Movie is in theaters in the U.S. starting May 24. Click below for showtimes near you.

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