Color me orange, but… hell, do anything to me other than make me watch The Garfield Movie again. The Chris Pratt-voiced animated movie is a slog of a kid’s movie, a tedious, unfunny piece of bland filmmaking so dull that even my five-year old was squirming in her seat and later declared, “That movie felt really long.”
Garfield is, when you think about it, a weird property: adapted to the big screen, it works best as fare for small children, and yet the comic strip upon which it is based, though family-friendly, isn’t specifically geared toward children. These days, the strip’s primary consumers are probably elderly people–the only folks who still get physical newspapers.
With The Garfield Movie, we’re subjected to an inane story about Garfield reuniting with the father he thought abandoned him as a kitten and a plot to rob a farm of a truckload worth of milk. Not exactly the kind of story you’d find in the comic strip. Sure, Garfield is still a lasagna-loving cat, but that’s where the similarities end.
But I’m no Garfield purist. If the movie had been funny or exciting, or hell, had at the very least held the attention of my child, I’d be on board. But it is none of those things. Accomplished none of those things.
At 100 minutes long, it’s a reasonable length for a children’s movie, but it feels twice as long. Baby Garfield is adorable, but after the movie’s opening moments it immediately succumbs to lowest-common denominator storytelling. It doesn’t even try to be funny or, hell, amusing. In terms of the heist you could see it going the Chicken Run route, except the creative is entirely lacking. Things happen, and then more things happen, none of them even remotely fun to watch.
I literally tried to fall asleep multiple times to make the experience go faster, but to no avail.
To its credit, my kid said she liked the movie. But she says that about just about everything. When pressed, she said she’d rather watch other (better) movies, and again, for a kid who can watch straight-to-video Disney sequels on constant repeat, complaining that a 100-minute movie is too long isn’t a good sign.
Color me orange, but The Garfield Movie is the type of children’s movie I wouldn’t subject my worst enemies to.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.
