The Garfield Movie: Review

Voice cast: Chris Pratt, Samuel L Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Hoult, Brett Goldstein, Harvey Guillen
Director: Mark Dindal

There have been plenty of attempts to bring Jim Davis' perennially popular lasagne-loving kitty Garfield to various media.

From the 1980s TV show voiced by Lorenzo Music to a blocky computer game with an irritating soundtrack, the appeal of the cynical cat and his fourth wall-breaking antics have always been obvious.

So Mark Dindal's 2024 animated version enters the fold, trying to create a film that pastiches everything you love about the cat with a heist-movie that blatantly riffs on Tom Cruise's antics in Mission: Impossible.

But it's a bit of an ask to do it all justice and while there are moments of madcap mayhem, the film's desire to please family audiences more than overcompensates and somewhat overwhelms the original intentions of the cat, who's delighted audiences for decades in various formats.

When Garfield and Odie are kidnapped, they find themselves thrust into a plot set in motion by Hannah Waddingham's maligned Jinx. Forced to reunite with his seemingly errant father Vic (Jackson in more chilled, relaxed mode), Garfield must find a way to break into milk manufacturer Lactose Farms and save the day.

There's much of the plot's premise here that feels ripped from Sony stablemate Peter Rabbit's second cinematic excursion at times - yet while the parallels stop early on and the film moves to mock Mission: Impossible - complete with Ving Rhames riffing on his MI role as Luther.

Unfortunately, Pratt is no dead ringer for the laconic tones of the cat, and most of the moments that would have soared with a more laidback, cynical, rich honey-toned delivery, just don't - his Garfield sadly doesn't feel like one for the ages.

But while the film is weak in some parts, its action-filled relatively generic heist elements at the end come together nicely, leaving family audiences with something that will keep young ones amused, but will fill older fans of Garfield and his antics with a slight feeling of disappointment.