Garfield: The Movie

Garfield: The Movie
Promotional poster
Directed by	Peter Hewitt
Written by	Joel Cohen Alec Sokolow
Produced by	John Davis
Starring	Breckin Meyer Jennifer Love Hewitt Stephen Tobolowsky Bill Murray
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Edited by	Michael A. Stevenson Peter Berger
Music by	Christophe Beck
Production companies	Davis Entertainment Paws, Inc.
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	June 11, 2004 (2004-06-11)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$200,804,534

Garfield: The Movie, also known as Garfield, is a 2004 American live-action film directed by Peter Hewitt based on the Jim Davis comic strip of the same name. In the film, Garfield the cat was created with computer-generated imagery, though all other animals were real. The film was produced by Davis Entertainment and 20th Century Fox.

Plot

Garfield is a fat, lazy cat who lives with his owner, Jon Arbuckle in a middle class American cul-de-sac. Garfield passes his time by harassing Jon and mocking a neighbor Doberman Pinscher, Luca. Aside from Jon, Garfield maintains an unlikely friendship with a mouse, Louis. He also interacts with and occasionally manipulates his fellow neighborhood cats, including the dimwitted Nermal and Garfield's his romantic interest, Arlene (who are both seen as live-action cats). Meanwhile a local television host, Happy Chapman, known for his cat "Persnikitty" is introduced as supposedly a happy man, but in reality he is jealous of his brother Walter J. Chapman a news reporter, and wants to outwit him in success wise by performing on TV show Good Day New York.

Jon has made a habit of bringing Garfield to the veterinarian, hoping to woo vet Dr. Liz Wilson. Jon tries to ask her out, but due to a misunderstanding, he is given custody of a stray dog, Odie. Regardless, Jon and Liz begin dating. Garfield is displeased at having to share the house with a dog, of whom Jon grows fond. Odie is brought to a canine talent show, where Liz is a judge. Garfield gets involved in a ruckus there with other animals, which moves Odie to the center of the ring, where he begins dancing to "Hey Mama" by The Black Eyed Peas. His impromptu performance is a hit. Happy Chapman, who also is a judge of the dog show is impressed with Odie, and offers Jon a television deal for Odie, but Jon declines leaving Happy to apparently be envious of Odie.

After Garfield causes a mess inside Jon's house, Jon puts him outside, where Odie comes to comfort him. Garfield reacts by running inside and locking Odie out. Odie runs away, and is picked up by an elderly woman named Mrs. Baker. A distraught Jon works with Liz to search for him, while the neighborhood animals ridicule Garfield for what he did to Odie. Meanwhile, Chapman and his assistant find a "lost dog" found poster Mrs. Baker created, of Odie and recognizing the lucrative possibilities, claim Odie as Happy's own. When Garfield sees Odie on television and hears Chapman announce he and Odie are going to New York City by train for a big performance on Good Day New York, Garfield, realizing his selfishness, vows to intervene. Garfield leaves his house on a rescue mission for Odie. At Chapman's studio at Telegraph Tower, Garfield finds Odie captive in a room; Chapman enters and secures a shock collar to Odie, which, when activated, releases an electric discharge that forces him to perform tricks. Chapman heads for the train station, with Garfield in pursuit. However, an animal control officer snags Garfield as a runaway before he can reach Odie. Meanwhile, Jon contacts Mrs. Baker through her poster, and is told Odie's real owner had already retrieved him. Garfield is sprung from the pound by Chapman's abandoned feline star, Persnikitty who turns out to be actually named as Sir Roland.

At the train station, Chapman boards the train, with Odie in the luggage car. Garfield arrives only to see the train depart. As the train speeds away from the station, and seeing a child with a toy train engine (probably the flying Scotsman in a different shape and size) makes Garfield remembers that his train set at home is similar, so he sneaks into the control room and attempts to stop Odie's train. The tracks get rearranged, leading to an impending train wreck. Garfield hits an emergency control and causes Chapman's train to return. Garfield frees Odie and they exit the train. However Chapman notices them walk out and gives chase. Chapman corners the two, and threatens Odie with the shock collar, but is greeted by the pound animals, led by Sir Roland. They swarm and attack Chapman, allowing for Odie to escape. Chapman gets up to find the shock collar has been placed on his own neck, from which he receives two powerful jolts. Jon and Liz arrive to reclaim the animals and find Chapman off-balance. Jon punches Chapman for stealing Odie, and leaves with Liz and the two animals. Chapman is arrested for his supposed involvement with the trains, as well as for abducting Odie. Garfield regains the trust of his animal friends.

Back at home, Liz kisses Jon, while Garfield seems to have learned about friendship, love and not to envy others. He then shoves Odie off his chair repeatedly. The film closes with Garfield singing and dancing to James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)". He does a split and can't get it back up without help.

Cast

Live action actors

• Breckin Meyer as Jon Arbuckle, the owner of Garfield and Odie. he wants Odie but Garfield jealous for dislikes him
• Jennifer Love Hewitt as Dr. Liz Wilson, Jon's crush and Garfield's vet
• Stephen Tobolowsky as Happy Chapman, a television host and the main antagonist of the movie, who features house pets on his show. He kidnaps Odie, when Odie's owner, Jon Arbuckle declines an offer to have Odie be on Television, thinking he will make him a star after judging a dog show in which Odie won for performing a dance. He then renames Odie to "OdieSchnitzel" during his show to cover up his crime. When he gets arrested, his TV show presumably is canceled. His catchphrases are "Be Happy!" and "Dog act!? Story of my life; Looking for a Dog and I'm stuck with a cat!" He may be a parody of Soupy Sales.
• Evan Arnold as Wendall, Happy's butler who isn't sure about Happy's unthankfullness, but works with him on kidnapping Odie. He is the one who informs Happy about the "Found" poster of Odie and lets him steal Odie as he belongs to Jon Arbuckle. When Happy gets arrested in the film's ending, he is last seen running after the police car that drives off with Happy. He is presumably arrested after the movie for working with Chapman on kidnapping Odie and for not preventing him from stealing Odie from Jon.
• Mark Christopher Lawrence as Christopher Mello
• Eve Brent Ashe as Mrs. Baker (as Eve Brent), a woman who finds Odie when Odie runs away from his owner and lets Odie stay with her until she can find his owner. When Television host, Happy Chapman intentionally tricks her into thinking that Odie is "his" dog she falls for his trick and demands an autograph photo of Happy in exchange for finding Happy's seemingly dog. Later Jon Arbuckle claims Odie as his dog which is true, but she doesn't believe them, but gives them information about how Happy Chapman took Odie.
• Juliette Goglia as Little Girl
• Joe Bays as Raccoon Lodge Member
• Leyna Nguyen as News Reporter
• Joe Ochman as Engineer

Garfield creator Jim Davis appeared as an uncredited drunken conventioner, but his role was cut from the final cut of the film.

Voice actors

• Bill Murray as Garfield, Jon's large, lazy, cat. when Jon brings Odie home, Garfield isn't very fond of the dog him Odie is new while Garfield is perceived as old. He loves Lasagna, watching TV, and sleeping in bed.
• Nick Cannon as Louis, Louis is a friendly mouse. He often helps Garfield and is rewarded with macadamia nut cookies. He may be meant to be a film portrayal of Squeak the mouse.
• Alan Cumming as Persnikitty (he renames himself "Sir Roland"), a cat who releases the pets from the animal shelter. He was originally on Happy Chapman's show. It remains unknown if he had attended the final attack on Happy, led by Garfield, and Odie, in the climax of the movie.
• David Eigenberg as Nermal, the neighborhood cat who thinks he's the cutest thing ever. This earns him Garfield's ire.
• Brad Garrett as Luca, a very sensitive dog who guards a house next door, yet Garfield always manages to trick him. Garfield attempts to steal a pie at his house and tangles Luca up in garden gnomes.
• Debra Messing as Arlene, a girl cat and Garfield's girlfriend.
• Richard Kind as Dad Rat
• Debra Jo Rupp as Mom Rat
• Wyatt Smith as Kid Rat #1
• Jordan Kaiser as Kid Rat #2
• Alyson Stoner as Kid Rat #3
• Jimmy Kimmel as Spanky (unnamed in the film)

Production

The film was directed by Peter Hewitt, produced by Davis Entertainment for 20th Century Fox, and stars Breckin Meyer as Jon Arbuckle, Jennifer Love Hewitt as Dr. Liz Wilson, and features Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield.

The film was released in the United States on June 11, 2004. Reviews of the movie were generally very mixed, although Murray's voice work received some positive notices. Murray has claimed that he only took part because he was under the misguided impression the screenplay, actually co-written by Joel Cohen, was the work of Joel Coen.

Filming was at several locations including Los Angeles Union Station in downtown where the Metro Gold Line & Metro Red Line as part of the metro's hub.

Music

Baha Men performed the song "Holla!" for the film and its soundtrack. The music video premiered in early summer 2004 and featured clips from the film and gags showing obvious references to the Garfield franchise (such as lasagna jokes).

Reception

Critical reception

Garfield: The Movie was panned by critics. The movie received a "rotten" 15% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, 5 points shy of being placed on the website's "100 Worst Movies of All Time" list. Rotten Tomatoes's consensus was that "when the novelty of the CGI Garfield wears off, what's left is a simplistic kiddie movie." Yahoo! Movies critics' gave it a C-. Among the few positive critics were Roger Ebert who gave the film a "thumbs up," saying the movie was "charming."

Murray said in an interview with GQ that he was fooled into playing the voice of Garfield for the film.

I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that...So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

In Zombieland, when Bill Murray is shot he is asked if he had any regrets. He responds by saying "Garfield, maybe."

Box office

First Weekend Gross	US$	21,727,611
Domestic	US$	75,369,589
Non-Domestic	US$	125,434,945
World-Wide	US$	200,804,534

Sequel

A sequel, entitled Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, was released on June 16, 2006 in North America.

External links

• Garfield: The Movie at IMDb
• Garfield: The Movie at AllMovie
• Garfield: The Movie at Box Office Mojo
• Jennifer Love Hewitt interview for Garfield