IT'S NOT 1982 ANYMORE. If it were, everything I just wrote would be totally accurate. However, in the 2004, most of the above statements are a little off kilter. While it's true people still read the comic, the days of the Garfield marketing blitz ended around the time Lionel Richie had us all "Dancing On the Ceiling" (1986, that is). Once a refrigerator-door and cubicle staple, the humor of Garfield these days is more to be laughed at than with. Garfield's love of lasagna, dislike of Mondays, and vague "laziness" may once have represented the epitome of hip, but today it's the exclusive domain of clueless grandmothers and hopeless shut-in housewives. In our "extreme," "in your face," "carry on the remainder of this conversation with my hand" world, Garfield is so lame and stale it actually seems redundant to mock it. I will anyway, of course. Now, I suppose it's inevitable to find the varnish stripped from any franchise after 20+ years. This tends to be the case with most comic strips, with the possible exception of "Hi and Lois" (with their current plotline following the couple "spicing up" their relationship by placing personal ads for a "bi-curious shemale") and "Hagar the Horrible." Now don't even TRY and tell me "Hagar" is not still extremely relevant, because I might have to climb through your computer and punch you in the cock (if you're a lady, we can discuss other options). "Hagar" is still 100% timely. Why, just the other day they did a strip about spousal rape, and I hear they've got one planned about AIDS in the coming weeks. One thing you can say about that crazy viking: he does not back away from controversy. But ol' Jim Davis (the creator of "Garfield") hasn't changed the record in at least two decades, so what was once a "big, fat, hairy deal" is now just fat. Even Blondie got a career after 30 years (she has a MILF webcam, I think), so why can't Garfield do something different for a change?
Frankly, when I first heard that a "Garfield" movie was being made, I thought for sure it was a joke. Making a movie out of Garfield is like making an opera out of Police Academy. When something's old, tired and useless, reinventing it in another genre rarely breathes life into its lungs. Taking a mildly amusing comic strip character and thinking he could carry a major motion picture is nothing less than psychopathic delusion, though, especially when the character in question hasn't been popular in 20 years and shows no signs of picking up steam anytime soon. Memo to moviemakers: just because something worked once, doesn't always mean it's ripe for a comeback. I seem to recall slavery being pretty popular once, but I don't see anyone chomping at the bit to bring it back, just because it was hot 150 years ago. Oops, should I have used a different phrase than "chomping at the bit" there? At any rate, my worst fears have been realized. 20 years past the height of his popularity, long after anyone stopped caring, and in sheer defiance of all good sense, Garfield hit the multiplex. What was once a daily diversion for Americans while flipping through the paper has now become a international embarrassment for Hollywood and an annoyance for anyone unfortunate enough to sit through it. Truth be told, I had no intentions of ever seeing Garfield. I planned on skipping it (as did most of America) and maybe seeing it when it hit TV, presumably when I was too drunk to reach the remote control, or after I'd been in an accident that left me without the use of my arms. However, as luck would have it, I recently found myself on a flight to Los Angeles (that's right, that place where the movie stars live), with Garfield as part of the in-flight entertainment. And I use the word "entertainment" lightly here, because they were also showing an episode of "Friends" and several segments that were basically commercials for destinations the airline just "happens" to fly to, each and every day. If anyone ever says "what were you doing in Mazatlán," I'll be sure and say it looked so darn good on that 5-inch screen, I just had to check it out for myself. I was so engrossed in the biography of George Lucas I got for 25 cents at a library book sale (it's from 1981 … did you know there might be a third Star Wars movie?!) that I barely paid attention to Garfield when it began. Then at one point I looked up and there he was, America's favorite comic strip cat (Heathcliff notwithstanding), dancing around with a dog and having the time of his life. Suddenly I felt violently ill and I don't think it was due to the five bags of pretzels and half a can of Coke I'd consumed earlier. The image of that (poorly animated) cat made me both sad and sick. Why is there never a World Trade Center to crash into when you need one? For the next 15 minutes or so, I alternated between my Lucas book (George, what were you thinking with More American Graffiti?) and Garfield: The Movie. Finally I gave up on George and put on my headphones, being careful to do it real sneaky-like, so I wouldn't get busted for using my own and not shelling out five bucks for headphones that have been worn by ten billion other people, most of whom probably had psoriasis and/or head lice, etc. What I saw after that was a tragedy worse than a thousand 9/11's, Holocausts, Titanics (the movie and the actual ship) and Jonestown massacres put together. Of course I'm exaggerating a bit (though only a bit). But I think it's safe to say that Garfield: The Movie is about as fun as running over a toddler with your car, then smashing into a truck carrying large panes of glass and then getting thrown through your windshield, only to land on several needles full of AIDS. If ever a movie made you beg for eye cancer, it's Garfield: The Movie.
The "plot" of the film involves Garfield (who is animated) trying to rescue Odie (who is not) from sleazy promoter Stephen Toblowsky. For my money, Mr. Toblowsky is a brilliant actor and he's not used in movies nearly enough. However, this problem could have been better remedied than by putting him in Garfield: The Movie. But whatever, I'm sure it put a pool his backyard. Garfield jokes, dances, sings, and goofs around for an hour and a half until the movie's over and your popcorn bucket is full of vomit. Somewhere in there, Breckin Meyer looks confused and Jennifer Love Hewitt shows off her tits and her increasingly frightening face. Rarely do you see someone so young who looks like they've had multiple facial reconstruction surgeries, but Ms. Love Hewitt is just such a person. She looks like a mummy with the bandages off; thin, skin too tight and a smile that would break off if you tapped it too hard. However, she does have amazing tits and you gotta give her credit for that, if nothing else. Nice to see she's moved from Jackie Chan to an animated cat for a co-star … she must be working her way down to orangutans. Bill Murray is a decent choice to play Garfield, but he's phoning it in here, quite possibly literally. Mr. Murray's made a career out of playing lazy, sarcastic characters, but somehow it doesn't work as well when the words are coming out of the mouth of an animated cat. He can't be faulted for his efforts and his presence certainly gives the movie a boost, but this thing is so DOA that adding Bill Murray is like putting lipstick on a dead woman and trying to tell people she's hot. Well, okay, so I did happen to do that while embalming Aaliyah, but you have to admit that girl was luscious. And in any case, Mr. Murray pales in comparison to the late, great Lorenzo Music, who voiced "Garfield" in the animated specials and Saturday morning cartoons. Those weren't exactly masterpieces, but Mr. Music's performances were about as close to Garfield perfection as you're going to get. And as good as Mr. Murray is, he's still just an impostor to the throne as far as I'm concerned. Granted, they'd need a Ouija board to talk to Lorenzo Music these days, because he's not alive. But, then, neither is Garfield: The Movie, so maybe Mr. Music would have been a fitting choice. Garfield has no heart, soul, or wit whatsoever. It takes the already one-dimensional comic strip cat and waters him down to complete blandness, as is usually the case for characters in movies aimed at kids these days. Garfield's the "bad boy" in the worst way possible way; lame wisecracks, "cool" sunglasses, flip comebacks, and all the other screenplay stereotypes that today's Hollywood hacks pound into their Powerbooks at a record pace. Garfield's humor is so boring and witless that it makes even the original comic strip seem like Oscar Wilde by comparison. The last time a character like this new "Garfield" went over in a movie, he was the eternally horny sidekick to the nice-guy lead in every 80s party movie ever made. You know, the loveable but boorish best friend who's always trying to get laid, but never quite seems to seal the deal. In Garfield, they've extracted the character's desire for sex (unless the airline version is heavily edited down from an NC-17 rating, in which case I want to see that version) but retained every ounce of neutered lameness. And while there's a certain charm to that lameness in an 80s party movie, it can not but ruin a 2004 kids' movie.
While it's easy (and fun) to trash a movie as truly horrible as this one, it should be said that Garfield already had a huge strike against it, before frame one was ever shot: that is, it didn't need to be made. Even if the Hollywood brain doctors who created this movie had somehow churned out a script to rival the greatest children's movie ever made, (Tron, right?) they still would have been fighting an uphill battle. I'm still amazed this film ever got past the "Hey, who owns the rights to 'Garfield'?" stage. So who is this movie for? Certainly not today's youngsters, who are about as interested in Garfield as they are The Katzenjammer Kids or Buster Brown. To any kid worth his salt, Garfield is an archaic dinosaur, something they've maybe heard mom and dad reference now and then, but that they've most likely paid little or no attention to. I doubt very highly that today's kids read the comic pages, but if they do, they're almost certainly not paying much attention to Garfield. I'd say more kids are more interested in doing the jumble or reading their horoscopes than they are in catching up on the latest adventures of America's favorite lazy housecat. So maybe Garfield is for the adults then? The kids who grew up reading the strip and remember it fondly? If that's the case, then I'd say it's still a lost cause. Because while fans of the strip may looking back on it lovingly, I highly doubt they've been chomping at the bit for a movie version all these years. I speak from experience here, because I loved Garfield as much as anyone … back when I was 8. I've seen pictures of me clutching my stuffed Garfield doll as though it somehow regulated my blood flow and I'd die instantly without it. I had several of the books, though I stopped around the time they hit double digits and began showing up with titles like Garfield Is Still Quite Fat. I'm sure there were more ardent supporters than myself, but I consider myself to be a pretty typical example of a Garfield fan during the heyday of the strip. And yet today I find I'd rather watch one of them Internet beheading videos than a live-action version of Garfield dancing around onscreen to the tune of "Wild Thing." So if Garfield isn't for the kids and it isn't for the adults, who's it for? Well, that's a good question. And it's something the filmmakers probably should have asked themselves before making this film, especially considering the lukewarm reaction it received at the box office. It's surprising they didn't just release it direct-to-Mexican-DVD. Garfield: The Movie is a shining testament to the Hollywood attitude of "Let's make it, someone might be dumb enough to go see it." At least I assume they know what they're making is shit – I might be giving them too much credit. Could be they actually think Garfield is quality entertainment and they were scratching their heads with confusion when the audiences failed to fill the multiplexes? I wonder. Either way, one thing's for sure: Garfield: The Movie is a failure on all levels. It's not evocative of the comic strip (which wasn't that great to begin with) it's not fun on it's own, it fails to amuse at every turn, and overall it's just plain boring. The film itself isn't as offensive as the fact that it actually got made, but as a piece of entertainment, it offers nothing whatsoever. I'm not saying reading a 23-year-old book about the life of George Lucas does offer something, but at least I learned that Indiana Jones was originally called "Indiana Smith." And that useless factoid is about ten billion times more interesting than anything I took away from Garfield: The Movie.
The saddest part about all this is that even though I knew Garfield was going to be shit, I still watched it. I could have kept reading about George Lucas (and it was just getting good: I was about to find out how Kenny Baker really felt about R2D2) and yet I put on my headphones and watched. I guess deep down, some part of me was hoping maybe I was wrong about the movie and that it would actually be good. I get this feeling a lot when I go to see movies these days. It's a bit like taking back the hot girl who keeps cheating on you. Every time you do it you know she's going to hurt you again, but she's just so hot, you can't help yourself. And every time Hollywood turns out some piece of shit you know is going to suck, I frequently say "This time I'm skipping it" and almost inevitably, I wind up seeing it in a theater, or renting it. At least in this case, I have the excuse of being stuck on a plane with little else to do. But as I type this, I'm making plans to go see Alien vs. Predator in the theater next weekend. What's my excuse in that case? Huh? The only answer that comes to mind is the fact that I'm just a big fucking idiot who never learns his lesson. Though if it wasn't for people like me (and you), Hollywood would have been out of business a long time ago. Take it from me, people. Avoid Garfield: The Movie at all costs. Spend your time on better pursuits, like reading biographies of people who also make bad movies, such as George Lucas. Of course at the time the book was published, George Lucas made good movies, but who could predict that 20 years later, he'd go completely insane. I mean what the fuck, since when can R2D2 fly. Ah, but that's the subject of another review. Check back around May of '05 and we'll get into what a fucking lunatic Mr. Lucas is. I have a hunch my review of the next Star Wars movie is going to make my review of Garfield seem downright complimentary.
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