Never two without three, goes the proverb. Which unfortunately applies to the big screen meetings of the character imagined in 1978 by Jim Davis. Twenty years after two films where animation rubs shoulders with live action, Garfield: The Movie by Peter Hewitt (2004) and Garfield 2 by Tim Hill (2006), Garfield, the movie (VF of The Garfield Movie) by Mark Dindal (A new kind of emperor), entirely made in animation, also misses its target. Or rather its targets, since young and old could or should be challenged by the iconic overweight red cat, lasagna lover, allergic to Mondays and lazy.
Lazy. The adjective sticks to the skin (or rather the coat) of the screenplay written by six hands (which is never a good sign) by Paul A. Kaplan, David Reynolds, Mark Torgove. Together, they made the cynical, lying and greedy cat into a generic, tasteless character, into which they shove down a past similar to that which is often cooked up in Disney studios. And they placed it in a story that advances from evidence to evidence, extending (sometimes a lot) the visual gags which — let’s give it to Caesar… — make the little ones laugh out loud a good dozen times.
Carried, in the original version, by an all-star vocal cast (Chris Pratt in the title role, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Hoult), the film allows for an unexpected reunion between Garfield and his father, Vic, the alley cat shady and unattached who needs a son to assist him in the burglary of a dairy farm.
So here are the grumpy tomcat and the happy dog Odie on their way to the countryside, where they come across a neurasthenic bull and his companion, from whom he was forcibly separated and who is still waiting for him passively, batting his eyelashes (wait, we are there in 2024?); and above all, an ugly white cat looking for revenge. Alongside the latter, two canine accomplices – including a pug who looks like an evil version of Scat, the hyperactive squirrel from Ice Age. In fact, if the animation is pretty without being exceptional, the original characters have no more… originality than the plot. It’s difficult to be creative in the face of so much banality.
An example ? In the scene where the bandits organize the theft of hundreds of liters of milk and everyone is assigned a role to suit them, the average adult viewer will think of Impossible mission. So loud (haha!) that the franchise theme will soon be heard in the room, emanating from the screen. Magic? No. Laziness. The Garfield Movie is the clear example of a work that only relies on acquired knowledge. The Garfield name guarantees profitability, so why give more than the union minimum? This is not only a shame, but also rather contemptuous of children and “their” adults.