Garfield (2004)

The Worst Film Ever

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A few comic strip characters and stories in movies age well, or don't age at all over time. Some have been made into animated films, others into real life films, and others a mix or combination. Charles Schulz created the "Peanuts" comic strip in 1950, and Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang are still endearing to adults and kids of all ages well into the next century. Old and newer films alike still appeal to people and are likely to well into the future. Other comic strips may last a long time in print, but seem to have a narrower window for film. "Garfield," the movie, is in that group. The comic strip remains popular nearly 20 years into the 21st century, and the 2004 movie was a box office hit. It combined real life and animation. The movie deviated in places from the characters in the comic strip. While okay and enjoyable close to the turn of the century, the film has lost its gloss for subsequent audiences. The plot and dialog are dated, and the characters and humor just don't ring in modern times. Most adults today will find the humor blasé. The movie gets five stars because it still may entertain the very young generation. Even if the kids don't get the dialog or humor of the script, they will enjoy the antics of the world's fattest, laziest cat.Here are a couple of funny lines that still bring chuckles. Garfield, watching Odie chase his tale, says to himself, "Yeah, I think I just may have a mental advantage on this guy."Garfield, later going to rescue Odie, says to himself, "Hey, nobody gets to treat my dog like that except me."

Like I said before, I don't see the point in making live-action versions of cartoons...All those lame adaptations are ugly and unappealing, and always fail to capture the essence of the animated works in which are inspired. At best, those movies could only capture the most shallow and pragmatic aspects of the source material. This movie is the ultimate proof of that being one of the most shallow, dull and uninspired films ever made, lacking the sarcastic sense of humor which made Garfield popular in first place. My advice is to skip this and watch "Garfield and Friends". This is just stupid and boring.0/10 (And I would rate it with a negative score if I could)

The adventures of Garfield the cat were at a premium throughout the 80s and the mid 90s. Jim Davis's wry cartoon strips about the lazy, lasagne-loving couch potato hold a fond place in my childhood. What astonishes is how the character grew to such a phenomenon. How often does it happen that three panels about a fat, flabby tabby cat becomes not just a widely successful comic strip, but also grew to several animated specials, mass-produced merchandise, and Garfield dolls staring out the back windows of cars all over America?Which is why there seems something decidedly odd about a Garfield movie being made about ten years after the hype had died down - it feels like its come too late in the day (although it still grossed a blockbusting 200 million at the box-office). One suspects it wanted to compete with all of the other CGI talking animal movies that were greenlit following the mega-success of Babe, but unfortunately, judging from the finished product, it has more in common with the similarly misjudged Scooby-Doo rather than the delightful Babe.I must admit to not being a fan of the CGI talking animal genre. Babe may have been the one that got the ball rolling, but all the ones that followed in its wake studied its technology but not its thinking. While on the one hand Babe was wowing us with its effects, at the same time the filmmakers crafted a strong story being enacted by a cast of delightful animal characters. But all of its imitators are far more concerned with animals referencing things they couldn't possibly know about, e.g. the latest films and celebrities as well as anachronistic pop songs that only date the film that much quicker, etc. In some sense, Garfield could get away with that, since one of his favourite things to do is watch TV, when he's not sleeping the day away or eating his owner Jon Arbuckle out of house and home (and lasagne). But for a film about such a beloved character, it still emerges as a big disappointment.To its credit, Garfield doesn't come off as cringeworthy as most talking animal movies (just look to Bill Murray's fellow Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd's Yogi Bear to see how bad Garfield could have been). The requisite film references and animal flatulence that have become sad staples of the genre are kept to a merciful minimum, and all of the characters are here, e.g. Garfield, Jon, Odie, Liz the vet, Nermal, even Pookie, Garfield's beloved teddy bear, etc. And when it comes to Garfield's lazy sarcasm, who better to play that than Bill Murray?But one wishes the lip-service had been worth it, because the story is nothing to get worked up about, only because we've seen it in so many other talking animal movies. Talking animals going on a big adventure is just Homeward Bound, while the villain of the film wanting Odie for nefarious purposes is 101 Dalmations. Even Garfield softening up is something Bill Murray has done before in Scrooged to Groundhog Day (the connection is more overt with GD's Stephen Tobolowsky cast as the villain Happy Chapman).If the plot seems slight, that's because of a fundamental flaw at the heart of the film. How do you turn a three-panel comic strip into a treatment worthy of a feature film? I'm not sure you can, and the film we get is evidence of that. The characters we know are there, but the plot is too threadbare for us to care for any of it. Breckin Meyer's Jon and Jennifer Love Hewitt's Liz bring nothing to the film, even though Liz is an unfeasibly sexy vet. The movie is just as idle as Garfield is.Also, where Garfield should have been the triumph of the film, the special effects are not. Although the other talking animals are done with conviction, the film's biggest special effect, Garfield himself, is a failure on all levels. Just like the then recent Scooby-Doo, he looks too cartoony. He never seems integrated with everyone else, which makes me wonder why he couldn't have been animated just like the other cats in the movie.The film does have an ace in the hole in Bill Murray. Although the script isn't worthy of a comedic actor of Murray's calibre, his dry, wry, laconic voice is perfectly suited to the character. This is hardly one of Murray's funniest performances but he can enliven any film just by showing up. Although he's reduced to a voice, his instantly recognisable sarcasm is the one true success of the movie.The talking animal movie is an extremely difficult thing to pull off. And while I would argue that there are worse, there are better ones too. Garfield falls into neither the former, nor the latter, and certainly without the presence of Bill Murray, Garfield would be a completely throwaway movie. And he's a character who deserves far better than that.

This is a good example of a movie that should have never been made. I don't understand why Hollywood chooses to make movies that are just plain not funny. I guess they are able to make a quick buck off of something that takes little to no thought, however, if they would just put forth a little more effort they might have been able to come up with something really good that makes them even more money in the long run. "Garfield" has almost no story. You will sit through this film completely bored for almost all of it. But that is not even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that it just does not work. The animated Garfield character does not flow with the rest of the live action. The characters don't work at all. John is terrible. Whoever Jennifer Love Hewitt is supposed to be is very lame. The mouse doesn't fit as he should and it is hard to find words to describe how bad Odie comes off. I mean, I am all for taking something classic, such as Garfield, and tweaking it to portray it in a different light, however this goes far beyond that.Another big flaw with this film is how unfunny it is. How many variations of the joke, "I have tags, but I left them in my other fur" have you heard in your lifetime? It really makes you cringe. And this film is peppered with that sort of thing.The transition from the comic strip to the 1990's cartoon was done so well. Why was this such a disaster? And why would Bill Murray choose to lend his voice to this atrocity? At least he recognizes the mistake he made in the film "Zombieland".Don't see this movie. Let your kids watch the old cartoon instead of this movie. If will ultimately save some of their brain cells.