Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Garfield Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

A hiss for the movie and a purr for the Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 5, 2024

I had high hopes for The Garfield Movie (silly me). Why? Well...in part because he’s a personal favorite character and has been for decades, because cats are really big in my house (we just adopted two kittens, both rescues), and because my kids adore anything that meows. So maybe I went into the movie a little biased but....I should have known better. A film critic for approaching two decades now and a lifelong film fan, I have seen firsthand (as have most of you) how the medium has really been unable to capture modern retellings of favorite characters of the past, with some exceptions, of course (Clifford comes to mind as a recent movie that did a decent enough job of it). But Garfield is just....so uninspired Here's a movie that takes a favorite character and just repurposes him into a cut-and-paste "adventure" film that does nothing to advance the character but only really moves him backwards from the heyday of his comic and TV appearances.

It is only recently that Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Odie (voiced by Harvey Guillén) have settled in with their human, Jon Arbukle (voiced by Nicholas Hoult), who himself has just moved into a cozy two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the suburbs. But their bliss – which includes Jon’s memorized credit card number, making food orders a breeze – is upset when they are kidnapped by a couple of thugs working for Jinx (voiced by Hannah Waddingham), a sassy and mean Persian who charges Garfield and Odie, along with an older cat named Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) who once betrayed her, to steal milk from a lactose farm. There, the team is helped by the farm’s aged mascot, Otto (voiced by Ving Rhames). Can this mismatched trio pull it off and unravel some truths that are wound up in the bigger story behind the mission?

As expected, the film offers some origins story elements, showing Garfield as an abandoned kitten on a “dark and stormy night” and his nose leading him to what would become a lifelong obsession with Italian food (and food in general), and to bachelor Jon Arbukle. The film slowly sheds more light on this gloomy portrait, but the material doesn’t exactly leap off the screen as doing anything to really change perception of the Garfield character everyone already knows and loves as-is. Like the rest of the movie, the backstory is generic and meaningless in the larger character history, emerging more as a footnote than a rewritten first chapter of the famed feline’s life.

Really, the movie should have been called GINO as in Garfield In Name Only because this is just a shadow of who Garfield is and wat the brand is all about. Sure, the movie clings to the basics, like Garfield’s love for food (which it uses as a plot device during the climax), but rather than stick with the tried-and-true formula of focusing on the character quirks of a fat and lazy domestic housecat, the film quickly turns into something of a caper movie at an upper Midwest milk farm, because, well, um, better ask the studio execs that one. But the answer is probably close to this: Garfield is a character with decades of history as a comic panel character and a cartoon TV star whose popular 80s show was comprised of minutes-long shorts (sandwiched around a U.S. Acres cartoon). A 100-minute movie just can’t work by holding to the status quo, so the filmmakers just drop a name brand into a generic adventure and call it good. It doesn’t work. At all. It has its moments of humor and heart, but Garfield turning into an orange Ethan Hunt (complete with Ving Rhames planning the mission) and the Mission: Impossible music even in accompaniment is just too much of a stretch, and too much of a predictable bore. Yawn.

The Garfield Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Well, if nothing else the Blu-ray looks every bit as excellent as one would expect of a 2024 digitally animated film. There's not much to say here. Everything is extremely crisp, and everything is abundantly colorful. The digital animation simply looks spectacular on Blu-ray, capturing all of the delightful textures the film has to offer around a variety of places (cities, a country farm) and objects (especially various food items). The Blu-ray is really only limited by the source and the digital artists' imaginations. Colors leap off the screen with boldness and precision, offering excellent saturation and richness to cat orange, natural greens, and various food colors, especially cheesy hues. Black levels are excellent, white balance is terrific, and the image appears free of any source or encode artifacts. This one couldn't look better at 1080p.

The Garfield Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Garfield Movie arrives on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Much like the video, it meets every expectation for a modern 5.1 animated film mix. The track features some fun surround activity. Thunder and sirens in a flashback in the opening minutes, for example, set a nice pace for things to come. The track always offers a nice sense of spatial awareness and fullness at every opportunity, bringing various environments to life with precision accuracy and excellent clarity and positioning to all elements. Music is wide along the front and healthy in its surround wrap. Subwoofer content is great, with booming thunder and rumbling cars and trains, for example, adding some critical depth to the experience. Dialogue is clear, centered, and well prioritized throughout.

The Garfield Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Garfield Movie contains the usual assortment of kid-friendly animated movie supplements. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Indoor Cat, Outdoor Adventure (1080p, 3:25): Cast and crew discuss building on the title character's history.
• Cast of Critters (1080p, 4:08): In praise of the voice cast.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 2:34): Humorous moments from the voice sessions.
• Easter Eggs: Garnishes a la Garfield (1080p, 3:49): Looking at some of the movie's winks and nods to the original comic and its creator.
• Deleted Scene (1080p, 2:41): "I'm Back" Animatic, Featuring Hannah Waddingham.
• How-to-Draw's (1080p): Character Designer Taylor Krahenbuhl instructs viewers on how to draw key characters from the film. Included are Garfield, Odie & Jon (7:26) and Vic, Otto, Jinx, Roland & Nolan (10:54).
• Concept Art & Animation (1080p): Included are Animation Progression Reel (2:07) and Character & Environment Gallery (a collection of manually advanced stills).
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

The Garfield Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Garfield Movie is a classic case of Hollywood trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work. The character is best served in small chunks on comic strips and TV, so of course there has to be a 100-minute "adventure," and the adventure is not really interesting or unique or attention grabbing or anything. This is a straightforward kids movie that only exists because of the title and not for any real sort of ingenious execution. At least the Blu-ray is excellent, offering top of the line video and audio and a nice, if not like the movie generic, range of extras. Sad to say but skip or wait for a super cheap Black Friday sale.