Reviews

After being away from our film screens for almost 20 years, the famous animated tabby cat Garfield is back!

The Garfield Movie follows the sarcastic, lasagne-loving orange tabby cat Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his dog sidekick Odie (Harvey Guillen) after they are cat/dognapped by the evil Persian cat Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) and her canine enforcers Roland (Brett Goldstein) and Nolan (Bowen Yang).

It turns out that Garfield and Odie are simply being used as bait to lure Garfield’s estranged father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), Jinx’s former partner in crime. After being sent to the pound following a botched heist, Jinx is ready for revenge and she wants Vic to repay his debt by breaking into Lactose Farms and stealing lots and lots of milk.

Jim Davis’ cartoon creation is notoriously lazy and food-obsessed so it seems out of character to put him in an action comedy caper that requires a lot of energetic stunts.

You could forgive this decision if The Garfield Movie was a sure-fire hit but unfortunately, it’s a lacklustre and uninspired Mission: Impossible-style heist story that we’ve seen time and time again.

It also needed to be much funnier – there are some decent laughs here and there but many jokes fall strangely flat, perhaps because they rely so heavily on modern pop culture references.

Although the story is generic and flimsy and the comedy is hit-and-miss, there are some moments that will still entertain children, particularly the physical comedy during the inept heist.

The voice stars also do a stellar job and try to make the lines sing as much as possible. Pratt is solid as the new Garfield – he’s no Bill Murray but he was never going to be – while Goldstein channels his Ted Lasso character Roy Kent as the criminal Shar Pei.

The Garfield Movie may not do much for adults but there are enough hijinks going on to keep the kids entertained.

In cinemas from Friday 24th May.

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