I don't normally talk about movies much at all, mostly because I don't watch a lot of movies. I find it hard to watch them by myself. When I'm around people, it's a social experience, so there's someone to discuss it with during and after. If it's just me though, and I have to park myself in a spot for at least 90 minutes, probably two hours, maybe longer, and not do anything else but pay attention, I just don't do that naturally. As a result, there's lots of times in my life where movies have come up and the person I'm talking to goes "what do you mean you've never seen that???"—Star Wars, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, any of the big 80s and 90s cultural staples, dead zone for me. I'll watch them someday when I don't have shit I'd rather be doing instead.

This is also the kinda post I normally make on Letters, but I've been the only one posting to it recently, and I don't want to make this into a really formal review of the movie anyway. I just saw it casually with my mom because I've been a Garfield fan since I was a small child, and we wanted to go out together because we're both constantly working and don't get a lot of time to do things together. We did mean to see it in May, but the theater had a big oopsie-poopsie fucky-wucky that meant the goddamn projector in the theater it was running in didn't turn on that day. We got free rescreening passes to use whenever we wanted and a refund and came back two weeks later.

This is an oooold Garf Caby drew. I wanted to include it because I dunno if she's ever posted it anywhere.

I dunno if I've ever talked about my love of Garfield online before! I owned many, many of the books as a kid, and I have the full run of Garfield and Friends on DVD that I've hung onto even after a lot of my other Garf merch has gone to the thrift shops. It's just a wonderfully, slightly surreal take on one of the most reliably reliable comic strips that has ever run in the history of anything, and it makes ya think the 80s babies had a point about their toy tie-in shows. I have a small Pooky beanie baby sitting on the CRT of the eMachines Box as I write this.

Garfield is just something universal, isn't it? I was reading an issue of LIFE I picked up from work about Garfield, and someone pointed out that you've got the toony sight gags and slapstick to appeal to the youngsters, but then Garfield's pure cynicism to appeal to the adults. It's easy to make fun of (I remember Bill Watterson shat himself in fury over it and especially U.S. Acres because of his high-minded auteur streak), and honestly, the deconstructed fanmade Garf media is a lot more interesting than the strip has been in a long time, but it's still nice whenever I see that orange bastard around.

The Garfield Movie is the story of how Garfield gets reunited in a very strange way with his stray father Vic, who's put up to the impossible task of stealing an entire milk truck to repay an insane Londoner cat named Jinx for leaving her behind during a milk heist years prior. Garfield and Odie are roped into it basically because Jinx likes to see people suffer, and given Garfield's surprising amount of familial trauma over being abandoned as a kitten, she figures the two will eat each other alive before they manage to work together. She also has two stray dogs following the three around to make sure they don't try to scamper off without completing their suicide mission. Along the way, Ving Rhames (who my mom thought was James Earl Jones), likely fresh off recording an Arby's commercial, assumes the role of a Buddhist bull with insider knowledge of the dairy farm they try to rob, agreeing to help if they free the love of his life from her pastoral imprisonment.

Now, Garfield movies are already notoriously a hard sell to the Critic class. Part of this comes down to the fact that Garfield just doesn't lend himself to large-scale stories like this. One thing I heard time and again in the reviews is that The Garfield Movie isn't authentic to the comic strip. Garfield doesn't act like Garfield, the tender moments don't line up with his dickheadedness, and the plot is way too action-y, somehow.

It makes you wonder if Critics realize—it's not much of a movie if the characters don't develop. Garfield spends literally half the movie sounding exactly like you'd expect him to, having no desire for the adventure, eating bonkers amounts on Jon's dime, snarking constantly, and being unshakably egotistical. I don't know what the fuck else Garfield is! If he was like that the entire movie, you'd go "wow, he sure is a rotten cat", and it wouldn't be any fun to watch. A comedy protagonist is nearly always unwilling, and Garfield is as unwilling as they come. This isn't him jumping at the opportunity to hop a train and break into a bottling facility. It's him being forced to do it under penalty of having his bones used as toothpicks. (Anyone complaining about the pacing of this movie as well is a goober. It probably should've even been a little shorter, if I'm honest.)

As far as how he develops as a character, that's where all the interesting stuff happens. It's interesting to see a character so bigheaded, so terminally self-absorbed, so large and in charge suddenly faced with this inconvenient wrinkle in his life, a father figure to dig up years of bad feelings, one he initially fights, then warms to, and then has to contemplate again when the typical mid-kids movie "everything goes to shit" scene happens. It's not deep, cerebral shit, it's Garfield, I get it—but if this cat isn't on the verge of tears sometimes, how can emotional investment on any level occur? If he's not having little revelations, how can a movie move forwards? That never comes up in the reviews. It's just "this isn't Garfield". Okay, then what does a Garf movie look like?

Let me address some of the other bugaboos surrounding the movie:

• Yes, Chris Pratt voices Garfield. I would've liked to see someone else too (rest in peace, Lorenzo Music), but he did a fine job. Maybe I'm just not familiar with him enough to have it take me out of the movie, but it matched Garfield fine enough. Amusing to see people pine for Bill Murray's Garfield, given how negatively the live-action movies were received back in the 2000s.
• There's a weirdly large amount of product placement. You'll see iPhones and Olive Garden boxes. It is probably excessive, but it's meant to be a modern-day Garfield, so I didn't find it particularly offensive. I thought the brick plot device around drone food delivery was cute. It's the kind of thing that'd ruin a headier movie, but given Garfield is already a huge brand, what's a little more really affecting?
• Someone hilariously complained about Garf referring to himself as "G-Money" early on. He's an old cat! He's supposed to be out of touch. That fits perfectly. He's not hip and cool with the kids, he's just trying to be.
• Visually, I thought it was cute. Garfield has looked weird for almost thirty years now, and the movie does a good bit to bring him back from Area 51. It's not jaw-droppingly beautiful, but it's also not direct-to-DVD slop. Animated movies haven't been eye candy since Zootopia anyway. Blame Illumination, The Garfield Movie is just made to the spec of the times.

As far as my own thoughts on the movie go though? It's cute. I liked it. It's not heady, and it's not fine art, and it doesn't need to be. It wasn't particularly funny, if I'm honest, but it was a satisfying movie to watch, and I really did enjoy the softer moments as Garfield has to eat his assumptions about Vic and about his life time and time again. It's what you want out of a Garfield arc. Odie, frankly, stole the entire show. I think his design is the cutest of the lot, and being Garfield's traditional whipping boy, he always ends up with either the last laugh or seeing coming whatever brick wall Garfield is about to walk into. I appreciate him more and more as I get older.

It really does remind me a bit of a 90 minute Garfield and Friends episode. Those regularly had to drag Garf out of the house on some bizarre adventure, oftentimes involving stray animals or fantastical settings, and the pacing of the movie wasn't too dissimilar to the pacing of those cartoons, just on a longer scale. The wibbly-wobbly fourth wall also felt very Garfield and Friends-esque, if anyone remembers, say, the episode where Garfield makes his own show starring a cat because he doesn't appreciate the representation they have on TV. I actually had to check if Mark Evanier or any of the original writers of the show were on board for the movie—the answer's no, but if you liked the cartoon, this movie isn't too far off from that, just longer.

My only real complaint (other than the lack of truly funny moments) is that the ending is kind of bonkers. The end result is that Vic moves in with Garfield and they throw wild house parties featuring all the other characters, sans Jinx obviously, which is just about the most kid-playing-with-his-toys way they could've possibly written that ending. Vic, I get, since he's family (I figure him preferring to stay outside and come and go is a little more in character for him, but he gets a nice BarcaLounger to match Garf's), but the stray dogs, Vic's old crew (I think?), Otto and Ethel, who are literal barn animals—I just can't imagine Jon letting all these creatures into his house. Maybe a backyard barbecue scene would've been more appropriate if they really had to end off with what felt like five minutes of everyone being happy slappy friends 'til the end.

That aside though, it was nice. I liked some of the nods to other Garf media and trivia throughout (Binky-Os, or Garf's lock screen passcode being his birthday). If you're a lifelong Garfield fan, I think you should see it. You'll either consider it a disgusting use of the IP from all the product placement, or you'll appreciate it as a short and touching little thing about family. That's what's so powerful about it. I don't know how to end off movie reviews.