Review: Garfield


Jon (Breckin Meyer) agrees to care for a cute dog named Odie so that he can get closer to adorable vet Jennifer Love Hewitt. Jon’s other pet, title lasagne-loving fat cat, is of course incredibly jealous and annoyed by his new housemate, but when Odie runs away and is nabbed by the cruel TV personality Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky), he starts to feel guilty. 

 

The CGI FX, whilst unrealistic (and not meshing with the real life humans or animals), were better than I expected, the human and voice casting seemed excellent on paper, and I like and am familiar with the source material. There was only one thing missing from this 2004 Peter Hewitt (the much better “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”) film: Humour. This is a harmless, but totally humourless, pretty clichéd family film when it could’ve been good, sarcastic fun (This film’s idea of funny? An end credits Murray-as-Garfield rendition of an overused James Brown song. Yawn!).

 

Bill Murray, with the possible exception of Steven Wright, is the perfect choice for the voice of the lazy fat cat, but if there’s nothing funny for him to say in the script, what can he do? Similarly, Hewitt’s immensely likeable screen presence is perfect for this sort of thing (perfect for anything. Really. She’s perfect in every way and I’m not a creepy stalker at all), but she is given absolutely nothing to do, and very little to say. Tobolowsky is a perfectly hateful villain, but he’s given far too little screen time.

 

Just read the funny pages instead, folks because there’s definitely scant humour in this big-screen adaptation of a comic classic. The screenplay is by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (co-writers of “Toy Story” and another innocuous but unfunny family comedy, “Cheaper By the Dozen”) from the beloved Jim Davis comic strip. Really disappointing.

 

Rating: D+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more