Jamie
There is a selfish desire on my part to have this or any other Chris Pratt film include a submarine. A submarine opens the film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (although I feel like at times I was promised more… like a dino on a sub). The Tomorrow War suggests the possibility and then I could have sworn that The Electric State, the tragic Russo Brother’s Netflix film, had one, although the evidence appears to be scrubbed from the internet. I was slowly nurturing a beautiful Chris Pratt Submarine Trilogy and there is a real possibility that both The Tomorrow War and The Electric State don’t have one! In any case, given Chris Pratt’s career it would be nice if one of the submarine films came from his animated efforts. So The Garfield Movie? Are you going to have one? Don’t worry if you don’t. It probably won’t change my opinion of you. Besides, I’m guessing one of the Mario sequels will have one. Everyone loves submarines.
To recap, Garfield is a little kitten on the streetz. His daddio, a gruff street cat, tells him to stay put while he finds food, but the little kitten gets scared and wanders off to an Italian restaurant. There he befriends Jon Arbuckle. Flash forward to Garfield and Odie having a great life with Jon. That is until they are abducted as part of an elaborate plot to entrap Garfield’s dad, Vic, and force him to steal a large quantity of milk for the eeeevil Jinx. They agree and head to Lactose Farms. When they get there they agree to help free the girlfriend of Otto the bull, the former mascot of the farm, in exchange for help in getting into the farm. While they train for the big heist Garfield comes to learn that Vic actually did care for him. In fact it’s why Jinx knew that stealing Garfield would help trap Vic. When they enter the farm, Jinx double crosses them and calls in the fuzz. Turns out it was a double trap. Garfield and Odie help get the milk out and are shocked when Vic leaves them behind to deliver the milk to Jinx in hopes that it will mean she will leave Garfield alone. Nope! Jinx captures Vic and plans on killing him. Meanwhile, Garfield and Odie are picked up at the pound by Jon. At home Garfield finds evidence that Vic really did care for him and heads out to save him. In a big climactic scene Garfield saves the day, Jinx’s plan is foiled, and Vic is integrated into their family with Jon. THE END.
If you will allow me a comparison to another Chris Pratt animated film, I am someone who enjoyed The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I thought it was fun to look at and set up the quest in a way that was consistent with a lot of what I loved about the characters. It also had moments that I thought were genuinely funny. As I said, I enjoyed it. This is kind of the opposite. It’s pleasant enough and I do think it is nice to look at, but what in the world does this have to do with Garfield? This actually has a lot more in common with Heathcliff than anything that happens to Garfield. Just a baffling decision on the entire plot of this movie and introduction of Garfield’s dad, Vic… literally decades and decades of Garfield strips to pull from and you choose to make up a bunch of nondescript new ones? It smacks a bit of this being a not-Garfield script that got turned into a Garfield script. May as well also mention that this animated film is rife with product placements… which is kind of odd for an animated film not named Foodfight!
Hot Take Clam Bake! We are gearing up for the big reveal that Vic’s son was not Garfield after all. He was adopted by Jon but eventually returns from whence he came: the junkyard. In the sequel the real Garfield will return, take his rightful place (with his rightful voice: Bill Murray) while the old Chris Pratt Garfield will take back his original name: Heathcliff. He’s then look at the camera and say “you mothers really thought that was a Garfield movie. You are a bunch of dummies. Grow up.” Hot Take Temperature: piping hot lasagna.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me watching some television, hating Mondays, and eating some lasagna (which I call ‘sagna for short)* Let’s go!
The Good? … Well … I mean, if I was a child I guess it would be acceptable? I really don’t get this film. Let’s just skip to the next section.
The Bad? What is this movie? Like why is this film? I do not understand how you end up with a Garfield film about Garfield being reunited with his father which is basically invented whole cloth for this movie. Why? Why is this the thing that people would ever want to see? Here’s the thing. I just want to see Garfield stories. Make it about Jon going on a date with the vet and Garfield trying to sabotage it initially until he realizes he loves Jon and so then the mission changes: to make this date a success! Make it about Garfield dealing with Nermal. Or Odie. Or whatever. The plot of this film is absurd. Wait … wait a second. I know perfectly how to describe this film: a slap in the face to fans. It really is like a puppet dancing like a Garfield film, but is actually not at all a Garfield film. It’s straight weird.
The BMT? I mean … could it be? No, I refuse. I refuse to accept that this film I will never ever ever ever watch again could be BMT. I refuse. This film is bad. Man … starting with three Bads in a row. Not a great year 2024.
Yeah, I spent an inordinate amount of time working through some of the issues with video as batch image processing idea. Some highlights: (1) The frames leak (obviously) so having something like Jaws 3-D next to Revenge of the Nerds 2 and asking if they have a shark in them, it is much less likely to correctly mark out Revenge of the Nerds 2. I would presume this is because it is now primed (in context) to look for a big ol’ shark face instead of a fin. (2) The timestamp determination is incredibly fuzzy, almost to the point of being useless. (3) You can figure out the frame is taken from between 0.25-0.5 in each second which I suppose is amusing. I’ll leave you with one graphic:
As I said, it is a little crazy just how unlikely it is to identify Revenge of the Nerds 2 (in position 1 in Experiment #1 for example) when it is close to Jaws 3D (always position 0). The kicker? Batch image processing actually exists, so this was all kind of just a thought experiment in the end anyways.
Obviously a Planchet (Who?) with Odie, look in your heart, you know it to be true. Some Product Placement (What?) with things like Catflix, a play off of Netflix. And I’m just going to leave it with saying the film is Bad.
Learn about cats in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 