The filmmakers obviously understand and love Garfield, and their movie lacks that sense of smarmy slumming you sometimes get when Hollywood brings comic strips to the screen.
However terrific Murray is, if Antonio Banderas, mellifluous voice of Puss-in-Boots in "Shrek 2," went paw to claw with Garfield, Puss would definitely triumph.
A black-dressing young intellectual of my acquaintance recently ascribed a "lazy generosity" to Garfield and his daily antics. If so, the movie gets the laziness but misses the generosity.
Now here's the reason America won't love Garfield: The Movie: Garfield's gone from the listless feline we all know and love to a fast-stepping, break-dancing cat about town. What's worse, the other characters are even farther from their roots.
A family film that barely resembles its source material, Garfield is a bizarre fever dream that I sort of wish never happened.
One thing I liked about this film was Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, I think he was ultimately the best choice to play the fat cat. But he was given very little to work with in the final film, especially since the script is so poorly written. Everything else is a mixed bag, I was mostly indifferent on Garfield's CGI design but it makes little sense for other characters to have completely different appearances - particularly Nermal and Odie. It was odd to see Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love-Hewitt play both Jon and Liz respectively. They obviously didn't really look into the characters all that much, as they are played as a romantic duo as opposed to the eccentric Jon being a foil for Liz's pessimistic nature. In spite of this, there is very little comedy between the two either. Much of the comedy is displayed through Garfield, which is generally hit or miss. I hated the whole "Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink." attitude whenever it came up, but I admired the slapstick / visual humor as it works quite well for young audiences.
I can't really recommend this film for anyone above the age of 7, but it is a remarkably average film for a family viewing. Do with it as you will.
Garfield I expect nothing , unless the entire contempt , this movie is for little children , but also was the family film live-action CGI I have seen, also too short, and terrible script, horrible animation THAT S**T IS THAT ?!?.
Garfield is as bad as you think it could be. Children will no doubt be entertained and laugh at it as I did when I was kid. Now that I’m older I laugh at how bad it is. How Bill Murray wound up in a terrible movie and he would’ve been good as Garfield if there was a good script. Unfortunately, this is a thin story with boring characters that are dully acted. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and I feel bad for all the parents who got dragged by their kids to see this.