PLOT: Jon follows Liz to London. Garfield and Odie hide in his luggage. In a mistaken identity caper, Garfield then changes places with an identical aristocratic cat.
The new Garfield movie is a cat-astrophe.
Designed as a stupid summer comedy, Garfield: A Tail Of Two Kitties is a sequel that finishes the dirty job that the original live-action Garfield movie started: It destroys the credibility of Jim Davis' beloved comic strip.
In the funny papers, Garfield is a lasagna-loving, wideload, homebody cat. He has a quick wit and a cruel streak. Odie is a lovable idiot dog suffering Garfield's slings and arrows. And Jon is a hopeless nerd who will never get lucky in love.
In the new movie, Jon (lightweight Brecklin Meyer) is ready to propose marriage to hottie vet Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt). When she jets off to London, England, for an animal lovers' conference, Jon follows like a drooling puppy. But he is not the Jon of the comics.
Chaos ensues when Garfield (voiced again by Bill Murray) and Odie hide in Jon's luggage, crawling out of a suitcase when Jon is safely in his London hotel room -- still trying to romance Liz and present the engagement ring.
In a lazy twist on Mark Twain's 19th century classic, The Prince And The Pauper, Garfield escapes the hotel, only to be mistaken for a princely, pampered cat (voiced by Tim Curry). They end up exchanging places, with Garfield gorging himself and Prince learning how much Jon loves his cat. As in the Twain story, but without the depth, they also appreciate how the other half lives.
There is also a plot involving a dastardly villain (Billy Connolly in the film's only good performance). He wants to wipe out a whole house and barnyard full of protected animals, including Prince and Garfield.
The movie is an animal lovers' dream in terms of story. But, because of the poor execution and the lowbrow quality of humour, it coughs up a hairball.
Murray seems to have even less wiggle room than in the original to be camp. Other animal characters, including Curry's Prince and Bob Hoskins' English bulldog, are embarrassments to the talent providing the voices.
I suppose there might be some value in this dog for little kids who just want the slapstick action, but even that aspect is sporadic, with boring bits bridging the gaps.
As for the tech stuff, the CGI version of Garfield still does not fit inside the live action movie. It is ironic that this doesn't work in 2006, the era of sophisticated computer technology.
Garfield sits in contrast to a famous flick that also featured Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? A generation ago, with cruder, even primitive tech tools, Robert Zemeckis did a better job of combining cartoon animals with live action humans. Some lessons are never learned.
BOTTOM LINE: Unless you are really desperate for a time-waster or actually loved the first Garfield live-action movie, take a pass on this hairball sequel.
(This film is rated G)
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