Movie Review Garfield

Garfield (2004) 

Directed by Peter Hewitt 

Written by Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow

Starring Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Bill Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky 

Release Date June 11th, 2004

Published June 10th, 2004 

As a kid, I was a huge fan of Garfield the comic strip. I had all the books, made up of all of the Newspaper strips, I had the Garfield videos that aired on each holiday and I was a regular Saturday morning viewer of Garfield and Friends. However, when I heard that Garfield was coming to the big screen I was not excited. Especially since the film would not be animated but live action with Garfield rendered in CGI. Throw in Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt and director Peter Hewitt and I was even less excited.

Then they cast Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield and somehow this mess of an idea became mildly tolerable as a concept. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the comic strip, Garfield is a fat, lazy, lasagna loving, orange cat. He loves to eat, sleep and watch TV and occasionally revel in the constant humiliation of his owner John, played here by Breckin Meyer. The plot of the film has Garfield's comfy life turned upside down by the arrival of Odie, a lost puppy that was a gift from Garfield's attractive veterinarian, Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt).

With Odie getting all of John's attention, Garfield hatches a plan to get rid of him. His plan works but when Garfield sees how sad John is at losing Odie, he decides to get Odie back. That's not as easy as it sounds because Odie has been picked up by a conniving kid’s show host named Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky) who wants to make Odie part of his act and take the act to New York. It's up to Garfield to stop him before Odie is taken away forever.

The plot of Garfield the movie is dull, as are the human characters. What's not dull is Bill Murray whose constant riffing and laconic delivery are what I've always imagined Garfield would sound like. Garfield's lines in this script are as tepid as anything the human characters have to deliver but when Murray seems to go off the script the movie gets pretty funny. Maybe I'm biased by how much I like the character and how much I like Bill Murray, but I found myself willing to tolerate most of the banal plot of Garfield because I liked Bill Murray's performance as Garfield.

The CGI Garfield is not the best special effect. He does not seamlessly integrate into the background and his unreality is exacerbated by not having human characters interesting enough to distract from the effects. Nothing against Breckin Meyer or Jennifer Love Hewitt, who are both likable actors in the right roles. However, when the material is bad they can do little to improve it, unlike more experienced and talented actors like Murray who can make bad material better than it should be.

See Garfield only if you are a huge fan of Bill Murray and his unique brand of personality and humor.