The Garfield Movie - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Garfield Movie



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Ahhhh yes, Garfield. America’s favorite lazy, over eating, lasagna loving, rude cat who gets away with WAAAAAAAAAAY too much. Garfield is probably one of America’s most successful old comic runs, having decades of print under it’s belt, a highly successful animated run back in the late 80s and early 90s (seriously, Garfield and Friends was comic gold on screen for us gen X/elder millennials), but for some reason never came to the silver screen. Well, that was attempted back in 2004 and 2006 back when it was all the rage to mix animated movies with live action, with notoriously bad results. Garfield The Movie was a moderate hit despite being rather lackluster in the story department, and spawned a 2006 sequel that basically bombed at the box office. So color me a bit surprised when earlier this year I see a trailer for The Garfield Movie (seriously? You change up the order of the name, that’s all?). This time it’s fully animated, and starring Chris Pratt (who seems to be the go to guy for animated voices these days) and a whole host of other A-list celebrities in there. After being burned pretty badly with the early 2000s ventures, I went in cautiously, but still willing to give it a try.

The Garfield Movie follows everyone’s favorite lasagna munching, Monday hating cat as he goes through a bit of soul searching. Turns out Garfield was not born in the back of an Italian restaurant like his original comic strip portrayed, but was actually abandoned in front of one them by his father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson). However, Garfield has moved on and is living the dream with his owner Jon (Nicholas Hoult) and dog Odie. That is until Garfield gets “catnapped” by a vindictive cat named Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) who has a bone to pick with Garfield’s dad Vic. Turns out that Vic had gotten mixed up with Jinx years ago, and abandoned her when she got caught by the pound. Now that Jinx is out she wants a bit of revenge, and what better way to lure him out of hiding than by capturing Vic’s son…...Garfield.

Jinx sends Vic and Garfield (and of course Odie) on a John Wick style mission (meaning, an impossible task) to pay back Jinx for all the suffering she has endured. The job you might ask? Infiltrating the local dairy and stealing over 1600 quarts of milk as payment. The problem? The dairy is a veritable fort knox of the milk world, lorded over by a maniacal security officer known as Marge Malone (Cecily Strong, who is giving off SERIOUS Francis McDormand in Fargo vibes with the voice) who will cheerfully throw our fun loving friends in the pound.

Hmmmmm, I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the 2004/2006 films, but either way, it is definitely not rising to the level of Garfield and Friends from back in the day. I’m not sure why film writers think that Garfield needs to be involved in basically a heist film, or some super adventures. Garfield is most well known for being a lazy animal who despises Mondays (don’t we all) and wants to eat too much pasta (again, don’t we all?). But hey, I guess they wanted to make another cartoon come to life, but again, with typically mixed results.

Chris Pratt does a solid job as Garfield himself, but nothing spectacular. The same with Samuel L. Jackson as Vic. Both of them work well enough, and do a solid job. However, it’s really Cecily Strong as Marge Malone that steals the show as the “dontchaknow?” security guard. No matter how mediocre the rest of the story is, it never fails to generate a laugh when Marge is large and in charge on screen.
But no matter the reason, The Garfield Movie is a simply kids movie with not a lot of soul. It takes the trappings of our favorite orange tabby feline and tries to “modernize” it with mix results. Some parts of the movie are genuinely funny, but large stretches of the movie are simply missing the mark with every shot. I won’t say it’s a BAD movie, but I can’t in good conscience claim that this is a good movie either. It’s simply another big screen Garfield attempt with predictable results.
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Rating:

Rated PG for action/peril and mild thematic elements.




Video:

I almost don’t have to act shocked when a beautiful looking animated film comes out these days. In this modern era a CGI animated film is no longer the “fake” looking younger brother to hand drawn animation, and generally looks utterly fantastic on Blu-ray (if it has any budget whatsoever). And you would guess correctly that The Garfield Movie follows in that same line of fantastic looking films. The Sony Pictures released Blu-ray is almost perfect, straight from the proverbial digital tap. Colors are bright and rich, with luscious shades of orange, green, brown, and just about anything in between (whether we’re in the dusky night time alleys where Garfield is abandoned, or the glossy train heist near the end). Fine details is superb throughout, showing every individual fiber and hair on the animated animals bodies, as well as fantastic action shots that keep that level of detail at its peak. Black levels are generally really really good, but I did notice a little bit of banding in some of the alley way shots. Overall this is pretty much artifact free (sans the banding of course) and NEARLY a perfect picture.









Audio:

Being that this is a kids animated feature I’m always wondering how great the audio mix will be. Studios seem to follow one of two options for their animated films. One, they create a fairly solid mix that doesn’t really stretch the limitations of the lossless format because “It’s a kids movie”, or two, they go full Pixar and create AMAZINGLY immersive audio delights for us. Luckily for us this is much more towards the second option than the first. The Garfield Movie is a really robust and vibrant track, with a lot of action throughout that uses the bass channel WAYYYY more than I actually thought they would. Dialog is crisp and clear as a bell, with a good score to fill everything out in the back end nicely. However, the surrounds and bass REALLY kick into high gear more often than expected. Whether it be Otto trying to slam the cats with a tree, a train heist rescue at the end, or simply the rumble of gigantic dogs slamming a burlap sack over our titular hero, said bass track REALLY slams you in the chest. It may not be a Dolby Atmos track, but Sony’s 5.1 mixes are no slouch, and this one fully leans into the notion that 5.1 is still more than “good enough”.












Extras: :

• Indoor Cat, Outdoor Adventure
• Cast of Critters
• Gag Reel
• Easter Eggs: Garnishes à la Garfield
• Deleted Scene – “I’m Back” Animatic, featuring Hannah Waddingham
• How-to-Draw’s
-- Garfield, Odie & Jon
-- Vic, Otto, Jinx, Roland & Nolan
• Concept Art & Animation
-- Animation Progression Reel
-- Character & Environment Gallery

Final Score:
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The Garfield Movie is not going to win any academy awards for best animated picture, but it’s a gorgeous Blu-ray affair, with awesome video and amazing audio. Plus it’s actually pretty fun as a cute time waster. I stated this above and I’ll reiterate it again. I don’t know if we’ll ever see a “perfect” Garfield movie. He seems to thrive on the printed page in short form storytelling rather than a full length feature film, and while this variant doesn’t really do anything to make itself stand out from the previous attempts, it’s still a reasonable kids flick that the adults can get a mild chuckle out of. Decent Watch will by my recommendation to viewers.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong
Directed by: Mark Dindal
Written by: Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, David Reynolds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, French DVS
Subtitles: English SDH, English, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: PG
Runtime: 101 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: August 27th, 2024

Recommendation: Decent Watch