Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006)

 

Genre: Family/Comedy        Time: 1h 26mins     Director: Tim Hill

Quick Summary: Garfield and Odie break out of their kennel to go to England with Jon. Coincidentally, Garfield greatly resembles a cat who has inherited a castle and accidentally ends up trading places with him.

Director Tim Hill captures, quite literally, none of the ever-so-slight charms of the original AND manages to do everything else wrong in the process.

It is truly painful to watch the incredibly forced performances of Billy Connolly, as Dargis. Connolly essentially spends the entire film trying to kill a Garfield look-alike cat so he can inherit a castle and turn it into a major resort. You can tell he really isn't enjoying it. 

My poor man Tim curry too. Oh boy. My love, he carries this film single-handedly. Curry is a marvelous actor with tremendous stage credibility, and his voice work is, to his credit, far more appealing and entertaining than Murray's lazy to the point of distracting return as Garfield.

The problem with this film is that it is low-effort writing, cheap jokes, and poorly connected bits strung out for ninety minutes. It’s kind of a shame because the casting is pretty genius.  But it’s all wasted, as the jokes fall flat and listless. There is not much for an adult to grab hold of in the second Garfield movie and stay interested, unlike in the first one.

Overall, this film is kinda boring to watch and a little bit painful. The only reason I'd say watch it is to hear Tim curry. It tries to live up to its predecessor but sadly falls flat.

3/10

"Oh, dear. Why is it the weird ones always go for the cat and not the dog?"