He's kind of a jerk to everybody. He mumbles in a monotone and sits around eating lasagna.
And he's this weird orange color that looks not unlike a poorly applied fake tan.
Easy to cast, right? Unfortunately, Steven Seagal was unavailable.
So the makers of Garfield: The Movie went with computer animation to create the immensely popular comic-strip cat. They recruited comic acting legend Bill Murray to supply the voice.
After seeing the results, we kind of wish they could have gone with Seagal.
Jim Davis' long-running strip is about as simple an amusement as you'll find. This, if anything, should be suited to basic kids-movie treatment.
But this Garfield, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, is one weird bird. He's a computer generated image, clumsily inserted into live action with actors and actual animals. The animators did a pretty decent job, but even Scooby-Doo didn't look this strange in three dimensions.
Davis' strip is two-dimensional in every way - the simplicity of its look, its jokes, its characters, and that's not a criticism. The entertaining animated Garfield television specials in the 1980s got the 2-D look and feel right, and the late voice actor Lorenzo Music sounded great as the leonine lasagna lover.
The CGI Garfield doesn't work as well, especially since he's alone in his animation. The filmmakers cast real animals for Odie the dog, Nermal the cat and Garfield's other four-legged supporting cast members.
But Garfield is a full-on kids movie, and that's why Murray joined the team. Too bad the writers didn't give him better words to work with. Having the star of Stripes and Groundhog Day voice your character should inspire greatness. Instead, the dialogue is as uninspired as the storyline, which says a lot.
Garfield has a leisurely life in the home of generic everyman Jon Arbuckle (played by generic everyman Breckin Meyer). Jon has a crush on veterinarian Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt), making him agreeable to adopting Odie, a dismaying development for Garfield. After the crafty cat's petulance leads to Odie's dog-napping, Garfield finds redemption in the rescue.
Murray's voice actually works well for Garfield, which helps a great deal. His performance is worlds away from his best work, sure, but it's no embarrassment.
The movie's jokes miss more than they hit and Peter Hewitt's direction is, well, due south. But it also moves along at a fair clip and never drags. As all-ages kid flicks go, that puts it far from the best (e.g. Spy Kids), but nowhere near the worst (e.g. Spy Kids 3-D).
Still, after the wretched Cat and the Hat and this lameness, it's time Hollywood took a break from cartoonish kitties for kiddies.
Garfield: The Movie
Grade: C-
Director: Peter Hewitt
Cast: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Stephen Tobolowsky; voices of Bill Murray, David Eigenberg, Debra Messing, Nick Cannon, Jimmy Kimmel, Alan Cumming
Screenplay: Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, based on the comic strip by Jim Davis
