It really hasn’t been a vintage year for cinematic pussy, between Mike Myers’ insufferably excruciating Cat in the Hat and this marginally more tolerable first silver-screen outing for Planet Earth’s laziest known feline, a creature renowned for raising indolence to an art form, as hinted at by his astute observation ‘I would like mornings if they started later.’
As likeable an Everyslob figure as the fat cat in question is, nothing about Garfield:The Movie justifies its existence. Lazier and even less ambitious than its slouching subject, it’s an alleged comedy devoid of anything faintly resembling humour, with excessive reliance on predictable physical-comedy sequences, some of which might just manage to amuse the under-fives. The plot witnesses Garfield’s ultra-comfortable world turned upside down when his doting dweebish owner, in a pathetic bid to impress vet Jennifer Love Hewitt, adopts a puppy dog named Odie, to moggy’s absolute horror. Needless to say, they end up inadvertently becoming best buddies, as the script piles on a sub-Neighbours morality play about the importance of looking after others and doing them good turns, however appealing and tempting the selfish option might be.
Unfortunately, the computer-generated beasts don’t even look impressive, the voiceovers are downright irritating, and the only saving grace is the absence of anything to rival Mike Myers’ pissing-on-Seuss’s-grave routine in the annoyance stakes. Still, this is unforgivably tedious trash.