Movie Review: Garfield (2024) seen in theatres

Animation; suitable for all ages

Everyone’s favourite fat lazy Italian food loving cat is back for another adventure along with his pals Odie and his owner Jon which sees Garfield forced to assist his estranged father out of a situation whom he believes abandoned him as a kitten.

The movie opens with Garfield ordering take out from an app. Off screen he is heard saying “I’m hungry” while deciding that he wants to make an order. He ends up ordering an insane amount of food for immediate delivery which ultimately maxes out Jon’s credit card. The scene then cuts back to Garfield who says he has a story to tell…that story ends up being about how Jon adopted Garfield. The story suggests that Garfield was stuck outside in a storm when he noticed a man (which was Jon) sitting at a window seat in an Italian restaurant where he has just ordered an extra large pepperoni pizza. He turns his head to see Garfield looking in the window and offers him a piece of his pizza. In true Garfield fashion, he ends up consuming the entire pizza in one bite as well as food at other people’s tables. When Jon attempts to order a lasagna to go, He opens the to go box to find Garfield inside of it consuming all of the lasagna. After leaving the restaurant, Jon states his intention to part ways with Garfield, citing the fact that he is not permitted animals in his current apartment. He quickly has a change of heart when he sees how much this upsets Garfield. The story then ends and a montage is shown of things that have occurred since Garfield was adopted. This montage shows Garfield stealing most of Jon’s food and pestering him in the morning when he’s trying to sleep, etc. Garfield also goes as far as to appoint Odie as his workmate and is shown in the montage serving as a distraction to Jon as Garfield commits his dirty deeds. One night, Garfield wakes up and enlists Odie’s help in affording himself a midnight snack. The two go to the fridge in the kitchen where they are both stolen by being put in a bag. The two find themselves tied up by their unknown captor where Garfield gives a strict but ultimately funny warning to their captor that he will take action against them if they are not untied by the count of 3. In comedic fashion, Garfield is seen having counted all the way up to over 300 before realizing they are not coming back to free them.

The identity of the captor is soon revealed as Vic who is Garfield’s car father. He is shown to have a rocky relationship with his father when Garfield admits numerous times throughout the movie that he believes Vic, (who is actually shown at the beginning of the movie leaving Garfield in an alley before the events where he met Jon,) abandoned him. With this assumption, he spends most of the movie calling into question Vic’s ability to be a father in comedic fashion. When Vic admits to needing Garfield’s help as he was captured himself, he initially refuses until Vic proves that he had no intention of abandoning Garfield. A clip is then shown from Vic’s perspective of the night when Garfield met Jon. In the most simple terms, it is revealed that Vic secretly saw how happy Garfield was with Jon, (having seen the events which lead up to him adopting Garfield.)

As Garfield now understands Vic’s reason for abandoning him, he changes his tune and begins to form a bond with him, agreeing to willingly help him in the process.

However, things change for Garfield again as they are trying to escape from a factory, (which is the main conflict throughout the film though this is not understood by me as I was watching,) when Vic steals a car while Garfield and Odie are still trapped which allows them to be captured and brought to the pound.

While locked in the cage, Garfield finds out from the other locked animals that Vic has a reputation for abandoning animals who once trusted him only to be abandoned in the same way Garfield has been.

Meanwhile, Jon has come to rescue Garfield and Odie from the pound. They return home and everything is back to normal until Garfield realizes the true reason why Vic captured him in the first place. As this has proven too difficult for me to explain, it was because he wanted to protect him, a conclusion that Garfield has come to while trying to put two and two together.

After realizing this, he goes with Odie to rescue his father and manages to do so through a series of events.

The movie ends in comedic fashion with Jon being reunited with Garfield and Odie and Vic having moved in with the two of them. The movie ends with a montage of Jon being upstaged by all three animals worse than he was before.

I have to admit that as a child, I wasn’t really into the Garfield comics or franchise. As I noted in my blog about “Toy Story 2” the first toy I was actually into was the Woody doll and this was after Garfield had been released. However, as the years have gone by, I’ve become more and more impressed with Garfield and I really enjoyed the live action Garfield movie from 2004, (which I have just decided to do my next blog on.) To be honest, I’m not sure why this movie itself wasn’t live action or why they didn’t cast Bill Murray as Garfield as they did in the first movie.

I have to say that for someone who was supposed to be a main character, Jon probably has the least amount of screen time in this movie as he was shown only in flashbacks throughout and he has only one or two scenes in the movie otherwise.

I have to praise this movie for it’s handling of two topics I’m dealing with in my own life….an estranged father as well as the inability of most of this movie’s characters to be patient and wait for things. On a personal level, I will say that I have been estranged from my father for a long time now and unlike the events of the movie where Garfield reunites with Vic, I may never reunite with my father, nor do I want to reunite with him.

Also anybody who knows me is aware of the fact that I have one pet peeve, (no pun intended,) in this life and that is my lack of patience and having to wait long periods of time especially for something which should take as long as that to accomplish. I find that this movie really emphasizes that the characters, Jon, Garfield, etc) do not like to wait as numerous times throughout, there are options which warrant something that would need to be waited for in reality to be delivered right away. Also, in a very comedic scene, Jon is shown being as impatient as I am, (though not reacting nearly as bad as I do,) while being put on hold to report Garfield and Odie as missing.

To be honest, I wish there was an option for immediate service on most things in my life.

This movie is also notable for being the first movie I have blogged which was in 3D. While I have seen a 3D movie before, I have never seen one up to this point prior to having this website or the desire to blog movies. As I believed it would be harder to do this for a 3D movie, I did not think I would do a good job writing this one. I’m surprised at how easy this was and who knows? Maybe this will present the possibility for me to blog more 3D movies in the future.

I would definitely recommend this movie.

Movie rating: 10 out of 10