Plot Outline
Garfield (voice by Bill Murray) enjoys an idyllic life of lazing and lasagne in the home of his 'primary carer' Jon (Breckin Meyer). He even tolerates his interest in Veterinary Surgeon Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt) despite the fact that this increases his trips to the surgery whilst Jon struggles to get up the courage to ask her out. One such trip leads to Jon taking on the care of Odie the dog and Garfield is not at all happy about by this intruder into his home. Yet when Odie is taken into the clutches of a TV host called happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky) and he sees how much it affects everyone, it's Garfield to the rescue!
Review
This movie stands or falls on how convincingly a CGI character can hold the screen against other real animals and humans. The audience has to accept what is still essentially a cartoon cat in a real world. That CGI has advanced to such a stage that a furred animal looks so good is amazing. It is obvious that the makers took a lot of trouble to create a performance that Garfield lovers would accept, and a visual match on lighting and shadows that would look believable.
Despite the huge cost and post-production time of such an endeavour it is perhaps inevitable that I feel they did not achieve 100% on this score. To my eye there were still noticeable instances where Garfield didn't really look there, and I was not so taken by the story that I overlooked such things. I could easily have accepted hearing Garfield and the other animals thoughts without the animation and face replacement that was done, which would be more in keeping with the speech bubbles of the strip. Just because you can do it with CGI doesn't mean you should. Quite frankly it looks a little weird to me. That I was in agreement with the Producer and Director on their commentary track that the best animal performance of the film came from Odie the dog, who doesn't speak at all, perhaps says it best.
However, both Garfield fans and children will find it perfectly acceptable and even tolerant of it all on repeat viewings. Most of the humour is 'spot on' Garfield and mercifully contains no 'adult' humour slipped in alongside to appeal to the grown ups. I always feel slightly uncomfortable when enjoying a film intended for a young audience when this happens.
There are plenty of set pieces and one-liners to enjoy, a few at 'laugh out loud' level. It would take a complete sense of humour bypass not to laugh at Garfield being plastered up against the back windscreen of Liz's pickup just like a plush suction cup Garfield toys!
Bill Murray is well suited to voicing Garfield, and the success of the humour depends as much on his delivery as the animation team's work. At times I was confused by the variations in the performance, and when I heard later in the commentary track that there had been a lot of re-recording at a later date I wondered whether it was due to this or just a deliberate performance choice on the part of Bill Murray.
I'm not familiar with the work of any of the other cast members, but they all acquit themselves well even though they are essentially only a vehicle for giving Garfield his screen time. Of all of them, perhaps Jennifer Love Hewitt has the least to do and I hope if there is a sequel that they find more for her character to do except be a plot device to introduce Odie, and an inadequately fleshed out love interest for Jon.
As a story it is quite lazily plotted and next time should rely less on coincidence, force majeure, and improbable circumstance. What is acceptable in a cartoon becomes less so once you locate it in the real world and place your fantasy alongside normality. Children are more sophisticated than some script writers seem to believe, and they deserve better crafted stories. Above all they should resist the temptation to have Garfield breaking into song again, especially if it involves murdering another Billy Joel song. And whether or not you appreciate the choice of title and dance music will definitely depend on your age. No doubt it helped sell it to a younger audience but to my ear it was inappropriate and intrusive. "Nurse, fetch my pipe and slippers please".
Video
As you would expect from a new release, picture quality is excellent with no signs of dirt or grain. Contrast is good, with nice solid blacks and clear graduations of tone through the deliberately vibrant colour palette used. The transfer is excellent and shows no compression artefacts that would otherwise have easily been visible in the flat areas of colour used in Jon's house. Very slight edge enhancement was just discernable on strong verticals and diagonals but the level will obviously depend on the equipment used to view the film.
Audio
A Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is adequate to carry the film, with little use for the sub channel. Rear speakers are used effectively for ambient sound effects at times, and for moments when sound needs to travel around the room such as Garfield's descent down a stair well. If down mixed to a good stereo capable TV, viewers will not lose appreciably on the audio front.
Extras
Being a review of the two disk version I'll identify when we move on to content only on the second disk. Disk 1 starts with the ever more unsubtle and preachy 'Federation Against Software Theft' segment. Mercifully you can skip all but the final contact details page by a quick press on the chapter forward button. You are then subjected to the inevitable trailers which are chapter stop separated and can be avoided entirely by use if the menu key. As these trailers also contain adverts for Maltesers of all things perhaps it is time to say that this crass commercialism has gone far enough? Can you please stop throwing this crap at us when all we want to see is the film we bought the DVD for? Thank you.
The menu system has a dancing Garfield with a scene selection option using static pictures for the 28 chapter stops, with four per page. Not terribly exciting but at least there is a nice clear indication of the selected scene by the use of a cat's paw overprint on the picture. Apart from the audio/subtitle control and the Play Movie option, there is the usual 'Inside Look' plug for the upcoming theatrical release 'Robots' which is quite well done.
So, on to the Special Features. First up is the commentary from Director Peter Hewitt and Producer John Davis. Seldom scene specific they spend a lot of time crediting the crew and detailing issues with voice and animal performances. They do talk about the human actors, but most of the time is spent on the difficulty of making a film with a CGI character who wasn't there during the actual takes. Although I'd not wish to decry the achievement it is hardly the first time that an actor has had to do a similar job (Bob Hoskins in 'Roger Rabbit' anyone?). A few moments of interesting trivia mean that it isn't a total waste of time, but they aren't the most interesting speakers and you'd never want to listen to it again.
Deleted Scenes are numerous and without on screen information or commentary it isn't always easy to understand why they were removed, especially as at only 76 minutes it could have hardly been for running time. In fact two of the longest segments aren't deleted scenes at all but are rehearsal footage of two dancers drafted in to give the animators some reference for Garfield and Odie's dance. As most don't have completed CGI work anyway there's little value to these.
There are two on-screen games. The first involves navigating Garfield around the air conditioning system, chomping lasagne for energy and tracking Odie by finding items of his along the way. Success or failure is rewarded by appropriate clips from the film. The second is hardly a game but involves creating a picture by swapping Background, Garfield, Odie, Jon and object elements. Without a means to print them out it's a fairly pointless exercise and wouldn't even occupy a child for more than a few moments.
A seven and a half minute featurette 'Garfield: Bringing the cat to life' is an informative piece on the CGI creation of Garfield, and contains the first explanation of exactly what they use the grey and silver balls on sticks for. Usually such featurettes pass this off as 'acquiring lighting reference". Here Dan Deleeuw (Visual Effects Supervisor) explains that the grey ball will reveal a soft reflection that shows the direction of the main light source, and that the CGI people can map the images shown on the silver ball to any reflective surfaces on the CGI character such as eyeballs or metallic surfaces. No chapter stops.
'Drawing Garfield' uses the angle feature of DVD to show you Jim Davis, the Garfield strip creator, drawing the character at different stages of his development. You can either view this 'over his shoulder' as he draws, or as though you were sitting opposite his desk. His comments duplicate information available on the second disk, but is useful for those purchasing the single disk version. This runs six minutes with 4 chapter stops.
Lastly, the short cartoon from the Ice Age DVD, 'Gone Nutty' is repeated on this disk. There's no natural tie in with Garfield, but the Director of 'Robots' (Chris Wedge) which was the subject of 'Inside Look' also directed 'Ice Age'.
The second disk contains longer featurettes, the first at 18 minutes being 'The Birth of Garfield'. The creator of Garfield, Jim Davis, explains his background and influences as a child that led him to be a cartoonist and ultimately to the decision to draw Garfield. The 'arty' touches of animated, faux coloured old pictures and the linking of segments with cartoon strip frames is irritating but the featurette is informative and confusingly covers much of the evolution of the character as well.
Such content you would think more naturally belonged in the 13 minute featurette that follows, which is called 'The Rise of Garfield'. It starts with footage from the 25th Birthday Bash party held in Muncie, and overlaps some of the previous material. But it then slides effortlessly into a self-congratulatory piece on the commercialisation of Garfield. Although it contains some interesting facts on the innovation around book format publications of comic strips and the plush suction cup toys, it does seem more of a 'hard sell' for the merchandising.
It also misses out, as the commentary track did, to pay homage to the man that preceded Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield in the cartoons, the late and great Lorenzo Music (also the voice of Carlton the Doorman in Rhoda). It is even more ironic, as he superseded Bill Murray in voicing the character of Peter Venkman in the cartoon spin-off 'The Real Ghostbusters', who of course Murray played in the two movies.
A ten minute piece 'From Strip to Script' allows the cast and Odie's animal trainer to do their bit in a fairly standard 'making of' type piece, whilst an eleven minute 'Illustrated Technical Commentary' walks you through the stages of the CGI Garfield character. Five multi-angle sequences from the movie allow you to see everything from the background plate through to the final screen render, and there are various storyboard to film comparisons. The latter are done as picture-in-picture views, with the angle button switching between whether the final or storyboard occupies the main or in-set view which I found worked very well.
Overall
Some properties get a great first movie and disappointing sequels, others start so badly they never get sequels. I don't think Garfield is a great movie by any means, but it is a solid and presumably profitable enough effort to justify get a second attempt. My hope is that more attention is paid to plot this time, the humans are given more to do, and that the CGI face replacement of real animals is reconsidered. About twenty more minutes running time might persuade me that it was worth the admission as well.
There's no doubt that a lot of care and expertise has gone into creating this Garfield movie, and that it just wouldn't have been possible any earlier. It's probably satisfying enough for avid Garfield fans and undemanding children, but there's little to look back on and think 'that was really funny'. Fans will want to see the 'Birth' and 'Rise' featurettes and so they will find the purchase of the two disk version worthwhile. Otherwise I'd suggest getting the single disk version as you won't miss out on much.