The Garfield Movie (2024) Review: Busy Heist, Lazy Cat

Is The Garfield Movie worth watching?

It depends on who is on the sofa. The Garfield Movie is a perfectly serviceable cartoon for young children, but it gives adults and longtime fans of the comic strip very little to remember. Director Mark Dindal keeps the animation bright and the pace brisk, and the father-son story at its centre is sincere. The trouble is that the film drags a cat famous for doing nothing into a non-stop action caper, and loses most of what made him funny along the way.

What is The Garfield Movie about?

The Garfield Movie opens with its hero, voiced by Chris Pratt, living the life he considers his birthright: indoors, overfed, pampered and devoted to lasagna. That comfort ends with an unexpected reunion. His long-lost father, Vic, a scruffy street cat voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, resurfaces, and before long Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced out of their cosy routine and into helping Vic pull off a high-stakes heist.

Hannah Waddingham voices the film’s feline villain, Nicholas Hoult is Garfield’s owner Jon, and Ving Rhames, Cecily Strong and Brett Goldstein fill out the supporting cast. Dindal directs this computer-animated American production, in English, and it runs a tidy 101 minutes.

A lazy cat trapped in a busy film

Garfield’s whole comic identity is inertia. He hates Mondays, loves naps and regards effort as a personal insult, and the best jokes about him have always come from how little he is willing to do. The screenplay’s central decision is to build a plot entirely out of movement: chases, escapes, rooftop scrambles and a caper that requires planning, teamwork and physical courage, which are the three things the character exists to avoid.

There is a clever film somewhere in that contradiction, one where the joke is that Garfield keeps trying to lie down in the middle of an action movie. This version only occasionally reaches for it. More often it turns him into a generic animated adventurer who happens to be orange and fond of pasta, and the sardonic edge of Jim Davis’s creation is sanded down to mild grumbling.

Pratt is affable in the role but rarely sounds contemptuous enough. His Garfield is a likeable, slightly spoiled kid rather than the drawling cynic of the newspaper strip, which makes the film friendlier and flatter at the same time.

Where the animation and Jackson earn their keep

Dindal, a veteran of broad studio slapstick, is good at physical comedy, and the film’s best sequences are the ones that let bodies do the work. Garfield’s round frame squashes, stretches and wobbles through doorways and chases with real elasticity, and Odie, who never speaks, gets some of the most reliable laughs through pure mime. The colour palette is cheerful without being garish, and the action is staged clearly enough for small children to follow.

Jackson gives the film its pulse. His Vic is gruff, evasive and plainly carrying guilt, and the scenes between father and son, a pet who has built his personality around not needing anyone and a stray who knows he has a lot to answer for, are the closest the film comes to feeling. Waddingham, meanwhile, plays her villain with a theatrical purr that suggests she is enjoying herself more than the script deserves.

Where the jokes run thin

The limitation is weight. The heist plot follows a familiar pattern, the reconciliation beats arrive exactly when expected, and much of the humour relies on food gags, pratfalls and quick visual jokes that land with children and slide past everyone else. Nothing is badly made; it simply feels designed not to offend or surprise anyone. Once the credits roll, very little of it lingers.

Who should watch The Garfield Movie?

It suits families with children of roughly primary-school age, who will enjoy the chases, the animals and the lasagna jokes without caring that Garfield has lost his bite. Peril is cartoonish and there is nothing in the language or themes to worry parents. At 101 minutes, it is an easy weekend afternoon. Adults hoping for the dry wit of the comic strip should lower their expectations.

If your household enjoys it, or wants something with more to it, try these family animation picks:

• DC League of Super-Pets, another talking-pet action comedy that pulls pampered animals into a bigger adventure.
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, a similarly bright, franchise-driven road trip built around a friendship.
• Toy Story 4, the stronger choice if you want animation that works equally well for parents.

The verdict

The Garfield Movie is pleasant, colourful and harmless, with a warm father-son thread and an energetic Samuel L. Jackson, but it trades its hero’s lazy sarcasm for generic caper mechanics. Children will be happy; grown-ups will mostly be watching the clock.

Rating: 3/5