The Garfield Movie (2024)
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The Garfield Movie is a 2024 American animated adventure comedy film based on the comic strip Garfield created by Jim Davis. Directed by Mark Dindal from a screenplay by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds, the film stars Chris Pratt as the voice of the titular character, alongside the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg. In the film, Garfield is reunited with his long-lost father, a street cat named Vic, who is forced into joining him on a high-stakes adventure.
Development on the first animated Garfield film for theatrical release started at Alcon Entertainment in May 2016. Dindal was announced as the film's director in November 2018, and pre-production began the following month. By 2021, Sony Pictures had already purchased the film rights for global distribution and Pratt was cast as Garfield, with the rest of the cast joining the following year. The film was animated by DNEG Animation, while John Debney, a frequent collaborator of Dindal, composed the score.
The Garfield Movie was released in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing, on May 24, 2024.
Plot
Garfield unexpectedly reunites with his long-lost father, a scruffy street cat who draws him into a high-stakes heist.
Qualities That Are Better Than Any Monday
- The animation (by DNEG Animation, who also did Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Nimona) is smooth, fluid, and amazingly well done, and also had a great art style even for an animated movie of 2024, this is also a similar case to The Super Mario Bros. Movie since that movie also had great animation.
- Ironically enough, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 would come out seven months after The Garfield Movie.
- The 2D animations are also very nice (and funny to look at) in the credits.
- Awesome character designs that are 80% faithful to the comics and television series, as they are amazingly well designed despite having some departure from the comics.
- Garfield as a kitten is nothing short of adorable. The internet would later end up loving Garfield's design as a kitten, and it is adorable, thanks to the animators of DNEG Animation, also, it can be pretty comparable to that of Baby Sonic's design from the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie (2020). It can also remind you of the Garfield little plushies from the 1980s. In fact, his kitten design ended up being merchandised into a lot of toys.
- Awesome character designs that are 80% faithful to the comics and television series, as they are amazingly well designed despite having some departure from the comics.
- Despite being a huge miscast, Chris Pratt does a good job staying faithful to the titular character and does an amazing job voicing him. Familiar to what he did on the other movie.
- Most of the character's voice acting is also great since they sound like they are supposed to, and their voice fits them too, especially for Odie.
- Despite its flaws, it is a huge improvement over the infamous live-action adaptation along with its sequel and the direct-to-DVD trilogy, since it's more faithful to the comic strip despite inventing its material as well.
- Good and heartwarming soundtrack by John Debney, who composed for films such as The Emperor's New Groove, Chicken Little, Ice Age: Collision Course, and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
- The songs are catchy, with some examples including Keith Urban and Snoop Dogg's "Let it Roll", Calum Scott's "Then There Was You", and Hannah Waddingham's "I'm Back".
- Speaking of which, there is a scene where Garfield sings the Lactose Farms jingle. What makes this awesome is that the jingle gets stuck in our heads.
- Mark Dindal's direction is pretty nice, and it's also an improvement over Chicken Little. Plus, it's nice to see him return to make movies after 19 years.
- There are busloads of funny moments here and there, especially the train scene and "Road Kill" scenes.
- The jokes also are very funny, especially the ones that came from Garfield.
- Despite the plot being bland and generic, there's still some good action and heartwarming scenes here and there.
- Despite the lack of character development, the characters are likable, both original and new.
- Garfield is likable and is a massive improvement over his live-action counterpart, since his jokes are better and also, he is more of a hero than he was in any previous Garfield movies.
- Vic is a good new character and a caring father to Garfield, and while in the beginning, it look like he's bad due to the fact that you may though that he abandoned Garfield, he actually never wanted to do that but Garfield did go, and Vic did tried to see Garfield, his jokes are also very funny and he is one of the most hilarous character of the movie.
- By far the best character is Otto, a bull who's been separated from his lover Ethel, who would try anything to save her.
- Great pacing that will never make the film boring.
- Overall, this film shows that even with a weak story, a film can still be good if the characters and animation are done right.
Mondaying Qualities
- The main issue with the movie is that while it is indeed a lot more faithful to the comic strip than the live-action films, it doesn’t exactly stay true to the comic strip series either.
- It's also infuriating given the amount of potential an animated Garfield movie could have had if the source material was more respected, though this film at least is decent, despite that.
- It also feels too generic of a movie. It's a generic heist/road trip movie with the Garfield license slapped on it.
- Understandably, it's hard to write a plot when your main source material does nothing but eat lasagna, harass his owner, and get into mischief in any way he can.
- The ending is pretty generic, and it is your typical "dance party ending", that we have seen multiple times.
- Garfield's lips somehow move whenever he is speaking, which is not supposed to be the case since in the comics, he is thinking all of his dialogue.
- However, to be fair, this was also the case with other Garfield-related media, like The Garfield Show and the live-action film series, along with the direct-to-video trilogy.
- While the characters are likable, they don't get much character development, mostly likely because David Reynolds wanted to tone down the mean-spirited vibes from Chicken Little. They're mostly the same when we first meet them and at the end.
- Garfield for example is mostly well-behaved and treats Odie like a friend rather than regularly abusing him for fun like in the original strips, and while that's somewhat good, it also removes a lot of his sarcasm and snarky attitude which could have made him a whole lot funnier (despite already being funny).
- Also, in the beginning of the movie, he is way too harsh to his father, Vic, in which he did say that he abandoned him, and he would still continue to hate him until Vic explain wht happened in that day.
- Jon is mostly a regular guy who doesn't do embarrassing actions that cause Garfield to be annoyed by his behavior, and while that's also somewhat good, it doesn't make him as funny and memorable as he was in the comics.
- Garfield for example is mostly well-behaved and treats Odie like a friend rather than regularly abusing him for fun like in the original strips, and while that's somewhat good, it also removes a lot of his sarcasm and snarky attitude which could have made him a whole lot funnier (despite already being funny).
- Some of the new characters introduced, while likable, weren’t mentioned in the comic strip series, with some being Vic, Otto, Marge, Roland, Nolan, Jinx, and Snoop Catt.
- Missed opportunity: Nermal (outside of the ending) and Arlene don't make any appearances. Liz Wilson also barely appears in the movie, as she only gets two scenes (one in the beginning and one in the ending).
- While the pacing is great, it is a bit too fast, thus making it hard to make characters development right, or feeling a bit short despite the movie length being 101 minutes.
- There are some out-of-the-ordinary pop culture references at times, such as Garfield watching Catflix, a parody of Netflix, TikTok videos, smartphone gags, and the typical-for-Columbia Sony product placement (such as Jon wearing Sony headphones), which is something we have already seen in other Sony films like Ghostbusters, the Spider-Verse films, Hotel Transylvania 2, and others.
- Speaking of product placements, weird use of product placements such as Olive Garden and Walmart.
- Stunt casting: While Chris Pratt did a good job at portraying Garfield, he is also a huge miscast as Garfield and sounds nothing compared to Frank Welker (The Garfield Show) and Lorenzo Music’s performances.
- For some arbitrary reason, there are pop culture references to Paramount movies like Mission Impossible and Top Gun themes being played when Garfield and the gang plan their heist and the drones come to save Garfield and the gang respectively, which is out of place for a Sony film, and especially for a Garfield film.
- This may be because, in 2019, Paramount purchased the Garfield rights, meaning that whatever they say for Garfield has to be approved by them. This also explains why Garfield was playable in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and its sequel, as well as being playable in Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the animation but criticized the story, humor and unfaithfulness to the source material; but was met with positive reception from audiences. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 37% of 115 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Garfield Movie rolls along at a zany enough clip to be diverting for kids, but this animated adventure doesn't much resemble Jim Davis' iconically grumpy creation." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 31 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 73%. On IMDb, 64% of user ratings are positive, with an overall score of 5.7/10.
In a negative review, Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter criticized the film's unfaithfulness to the comic, writing, "As anyone familiar with cartoonist Jim Davis' iconic feline character knows, Garfield doesn't like to move around very much. He likes to eat, particularly pepperoni pizza and lasagna, and he likes to lie around and make sarcastic comments. In other words, he's not a cat of action. And yet for some reason, the creators of the new animated film revolving around him think that what the audience really wants is to watch Garfield engage in Mission: Impossible-style, stunt-laden violent mayhem." Brandon Yu of The New York Times criticized the quality of the animation, stating the film was "visually flat, with compositions that seem oddly half-populated and cheap", while a review in The Guardian went as far as to call it a "foul feline origin tale littered with product placement". A mixed review for TheWrap, however, praised certain aspects of the film mildly and conceded, "While this new film isn’t especially funny it’s still a reasonably enjoyable kids flick. It’s short on laughs but surprisingly big on tenderness."
Box Office
Despite having mixed to negative reviews, the film was a box-office success, grossing over $245 million worldwide against a budget of $60 million.