The Garfield Movie

The summer film season has already started and since the majority of releases during this season are animated and big-budget action films, "The Garfield Movie" is one of the animated flicks we have in the offing. The Garfield comic strip by Jim Davis first appeared in 41 US newspapers on June 19, 1978. The strip introduced Jon Arbuckle and his cat companion Garfield. So, as we are approaching its 46th year of existence, we now have "The Garfield Movie" to show us how Garfield came to be the cat he is.

Garfield (Chris Pratt), the world-famous, Monday-hating, lasagna-loving indoor cat, is about to have a wild outdoor adventure, after an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father--scruffy street cat Vic (Samuel L. Jackson)--Garfield and his canine friend Odie (Harvey Guillen) are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist since Vic owes Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) for getting him out of a position of getting put in a dog and cat pound. They end up meeting Otto (Ving Rhames) along the way to help get them out of this situation all the while attempting to combat Jinx and her henchmen. 

Others to round out the cast are Nicholas Hoult as Jon Arbuckle, Cecily Strong as Marge Malone, Brett Goldstein as Roland, Bowen Yang as Nolan, Snoop Dogg as Maurice, Janelle Jones as Olivia, Angus Cloud as Snickers and Jeff Foxworthy as Zapped Bird. 

This was directed with humor and deftness by Mark Dindal ("Cats Don't Dance" '97, "The Emperor's New Groove" 2000, "Chicken Little" '05) plus videos. As each scene was conveyed, this director was able to sequence the work so the film made sense and the emotions by each actor was perfect in its conveyance. It was also executed well by writers Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds, based on characters created by Jim Davis. Even though these writer's experience happens to fall on the TV side, they still were able to script an interesting story--the TV experience has served them well. They all have film experience, however the TV side trumps the theatrical experience. This film did have a difficult time finding the film it wanted to be, but once it 'found itself', the words of the story simply jumped off the pages and the film then took off. Those that played out the different characters, Pratt as Garfield, Jackson as Vic and especially Waddingham as Jinx were truly the correct voices of these different cats. Kudos to them. And DNEG Animation used here was very effective and expressive. I would love to see more work by this relative newcomer to animation. 

Certainly if you're a Garfied fan, you'll love this, especially his origins of how Jon became his owner, which I didn't see coming. It's bright, humorous, and the last half of the film is probably the best, so be patient. It does look great on the large screen and is definitely worthy of the price of admission. If you like to be up close to a film, this is also presented in an IMAX format as well.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                               Rated: PG                                                 101mins.