Breckin Meyer

(On Cable TV, February 2017) Some will say that Garfield is terrible or misguided. I just think it’s dull. A bog-standard kid’s movie with animal characters, Garfield is noteworthy simply for its association with the comic strip, for the CGI lead character and for hearing Bill Murray’s disinterested dulcet tones as the lead cat. While Breckin Meyer is likable as Jon and it’s always nice to see Jennifer Love Hewitt, at some point in your life you have to make choices and consider whether what’s worth your time. Garfield certainly raises questions, most notably why-oh-why did they not use CGI for all the animal characters? Blending CGI Garfield with live-action Nermal and Odie completely misses the point of a movie adaptation of a comic strip, and even if the answer is likely to be” money”, then no-Garfield would have been preferable to a botched Garfield. Otherwise, there’s almost nothing here to interest adults—the script is painfully aimed at younger kids (simple plot, stock characters, dull dialogue), and there isn’t much in terms of cinematic sophistication. To be fair, nearly everybody (including Bill Murray) has had negative things to say about Garfield. The only grown-up suckers who see the film now are either parents or people who didn’t listen.