Garfield's Fun Fest
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 "Garfield's Best Movie!" Are you sure about that?
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Garfield's Fun Fest is a 2008 CGI movie starring Garfield. It was produced by Paws, Inc. in cooperation with The Animation Picture Company and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It was written by Garfield's creator Jim Davis as a sequel to Garfield Gets Real, the second/penultimate installment of the Garfield 3D Trilogy and is the overall sixth Garfield film. The DVD was released in stores on August 5, 2008. It was followed by a third direct to video film, Garfield's Pet Force, in 2009.
Plot
Sometime after the events of the first film, Garfield is reading a book about the origins of Freddy Frog, his pond, and the beginning of humor to Odie. At breakfast, Jon reminds Garfield that Arlene wants to do a dance with him this year for the Annual Fun Fest, but Garfield is not interested in changing his 29-year comedy routine, nor is he worried about losing, and believes he will win again, because he won the Fun Fest 29 times, and the 30th Annual Fun Fest is to come tomorrow night. Arlene finds a different dance partner, Ramone; a heartbroken Garfield leaves alone. Garfield attempts to perform a new act that is done by himself, but he bombs it due to Ramone's heckling, and his ego is deflated. Worse, Arlene and Ramone seem enamored.
At the studio's cafeteria, Odie gives Garfield a letter. When the duo opens it, they see that it's a map that leads to Freddie Frog's (from the opening scene) pond; Garfield plans to travel to the pond and drink the water in order to be funny and win the show, hoping to impress Arlene. Arlene watches him leave and realizes she has hurt Garfield's feelings. She then runs outside of the studio, but Garfield and Odie are already gone. Garfield and Odie follow the map and eventually, seemingly, make it to the pond after many obstacles and encountering the funny animals who have drunk from the pond. There, an oversized frog - Freddy - tells them that is not the pond they are looking for. Freddy agrees and leads them onto many trials that involve learning how to truly be funny. But Garfield fails to understand what the trials were about. They continue to the Funny Pond, with Garfield learning about self-deprecating humor. Meanwhile, Fun Fest director Charles worries, as Garfield was the main focus for Fun Fest and is missing. Ramone steps in and takes his place. While Arlene is disappointed that Garfield was gone and worried that he is jealous and hurt, Ramone manages to win over the audience and judges with his quips and accent.
Back in the forest, Garfield attains the pond, drinks from it, and begins to feel funny. Garfield dances around and moves playfully until he remembers Fun Fest. Garfield takes some pond water in a bottle, and Freddy gives Garfield and Odie a hang glider; they soar over the forest, thanking the animals that helped them along the way. They crash land at the Fun Fest just in time for Garfield's scheduled slot. Garfield prepares to drink the Funny Water he stored, but the bottle had been destroyed in the crash landing, and all the water is now gone. Feeling that he has lost his funny forever, Garfield gives up and leaves. From behind a curtain, Garfield watches Arlene and Ramone dance and slinks off heartbroken. Arlene and Ramone spot him as he leaves. Arlene tries to get to him, but she is pulled back by Ramone and back into dancing. Freddy shows up and tells Garfield that the funny water was just plain water and it was never the funny water that made him funny, but rather himself that was funny, because of what he has done over his adventure, and that this should not even be about being funny. Freddy encourages Garfield to follow his heart by telling him this will be the only chance to prove himself. Knowing that Freddy's right, Garfield regains his hope. Determined to set things right with Arlene, Garfield goes back to the stage.
Arlene meets Garfield on stage, and they dance. Not wanting to be upstaged, Ramone confronts Garfield and the two cats fight. In the process, Garfield rips off Ramone's clothing, revealing Ramone to be a robot. Using one of Ramone's robotic arms, Garfield rips off the legs and robot face, revealing it to be Nermal in a robot suit, much to Garfield and Arlene's anger and to the shock of the crowd and judges. As the crowd cheers for Garfield's performance, they boo Nermal and force him to shamefully get off the stage, disqualifying him. Garfield and Arlene share an encore and Garfield apologizes to Arlene for not even trying to dance with Arlene, as this was more important than winning. However, the two win cheers from everyone and win the contest by getting the first perfect score in Fun Fest history. Garfield and Arlene are crowned winners of Fun Fest while Nermal starts thinking of other ideas for next year's Fun Fest much to Odie's disbelief.
Not Fun Qualities
- The CGI animation, while a little better than in the first film, is once again cheaply made.
- Garfield is smitten with Arlene, which makes no sense since in the comics, they have an on-off relationship. Speaking of the characters, they are all once again dumbed down.
- The whole plot involves Garfield losing his funny, yet in the comics, he is not supposed to be intentionally funny.
- The fairy tale subplot is extremely far fetched, considering the down-to-earth tone of the comics.
- Shecky, a side character from Garfield Gets Real, shows up once in a mediocre musical number and is never heard or heard from again for the rest of the film, let alone Garfield's Pet Force and serves no purpose in the plot other than a filler scene.
- Relies too heavily on pop culture references. While some of them are actually relevant to the plot, most of them feel shoehorned in just to make sure the movie has pop culture references.
- The reveal that Ramone is actually Nermal is a lazy plot twist.
- Unfunny humor.
- Docboy and Liz are not to be seen.
Fun Qualities
- Decent voice acting, like in the first film.
- Like Garfield Gets Real, it tries its best to stay loyal to the original Garfield franchise.
- While cheap, the animation is a little better than that of the first movie. Also, the characters no longer have off-putting outlines, though that's not saying much.
- The opening is also nicely animated, unlike the CGI animation for the rest of the movie.
- Like before, there are some funny moments here and there.
- Like the previous film, the music is actually pretty good, such as the intro and tango themes.
Trivia
- Similar to the previous film, the movie has gotten a video game adaptation on the Nintendo DS, which is considered better than Garfield Gets Real's DS adaptation. Unlike the previous game which released nearly 2 years after the movie, this movie's game was released to coincide with the release date of the movie.
- On the official Garfield website, there are 3 games based off of Fun Fest called "Destination Fun Fest", "Mystical Forest Adventure" , and "Tango Toss".