Jim Davis' well-known comic strip gets the big-screen treatment in an adventure aimed squarely at junior audiences - older kids reared on slicker fare like Shrek and The Lord Of The Rings won't be impressed unless they are die-hard fans of the famous feline.
A live-action movie with Garfield as the only CGI character (the other animals are played by real cats and dogs - and we assume Meyer and Hewitt have a pulse, though they don't appear to be very lively here), it's a simple story that hurls the wisecracking cat (voiced by Murray) off his chair and into a city adventure.
As his top billing suggests, Garfield gets the best lines - and thanks to Murray's sarcastic tone (he even gets to warble a Billy Joel parody 'New Dog State Of Mind'), and the spot-on animation, he delivers most of the laughs, too. As Garfield's owner, Jon, Meyer has little to do, and Hewitt, as love interest/vet (credible casting, we think not), has even less, so it is left to Stephen Tobolowsky (aka Groundhog Day's Ned Ryerson) to provide some human humour as Odie's kidnapper, a hasbeen TV presenter looking for a new pet for his act.
The plot shamelessly borrows from better films, but as a summer diversion for smaller, less demanding viewers this is catnip.
