FilmJudge - Garfield 2

REVIEW

Garfield 2
2006
Certificate: U | Runtime: 78 | Director: Tim Hill
Starring: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Billy Connolly

Jon (Meyer) decides to follow Liz (Love Hewitt) to the UK in order to ask her to marry him. He takes his cat Garfield (Bill Murray) along with him. However, a case of mistaken identity leads to Garfield being installed as the heir to a huge fortune, including a gigantic castle. Meanwhile, the dastardly Lord Dargis (Connolly) has his eyes set on the fortune too, and tries to depose the crafty cat.

On the positive side, Garfield 2 isn't as inept as its 2004 predecessor. However, it's still a poorly made film. Even though on paper it has a pretty good voice cast, the film never properly utilises the talent at its disposal, instead opting for tried and tested slapstick, and with highly mixed results.

The plot is very, very simple and as a result the film feels stretched, even when you take into account how short it is. This isn't helped by the generally poor standard of humour. Garfield himself simply fluctuates between making a cheap cultural reference jab, or trying to milk a joke out of his inherent laziness. Only occasionally is there any real wit in the dialogue, and the script is so clean and innocent that there's nothing for parents (who will be dragged to this) to get their teeth into. Of course it's always good just to hear Bill Murray's voice, but he has so little to work with here that it doesn't really need to be him providing the voice.

Connolly's talents as a comedian are also wasted, and pretty much every scene involving him is designed to make his character look foolish. Be it having his groin bitten by a dog, or being knocked out by a suit of armour, most of the jokes involving him are merely puerile slapstick. In the showing I attended, even the very young children watching seemed to become fed up with the repetitive nature of the humour, and the laughs soon dried up.

Another positive though is that the film certainly looks better than the previous one. The animation of Garfield himself has improved a great deal, and he now looks like he's covered in fur instead of just resembling an orange blob. We also spend less time with Jon and Liz, whose relationship is too cute and saccharine even for a film like this. And forgive me if I still don't buy Jennifer Love Hewitt as an intelligent vet, who this time heads to England to give an important lecture. She's very sweet, pretty and bubbly, but refined public speaker she most certainly is not.

But as I have already hinted at, the real problem is that this film has quite a decent voice cast, but none of the writing works to their strengths. Tim Curry is sole exception as Prince, another pampered cat, but Bob Hoskins, Jane Horrocks and Jane Leeves in particular are squandered in voice roles that could have been performed by just about anyone else.

In many ways you can't really get cross at a film like Garfield 2, because it's just so utterly harmless. But at the same time it's possible to be frustrated by a film that indulges in such simple and basic comedy that it renders the talent within it obsolete.

RECENT REVIEWS

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button