Karnataka - Bangalore

`Garfield' is all stomach and nothing else

Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties (English)

Director: Tim Hill

Cast: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Billy Connolly, Bill Murray (voice)

It's official. If there was any doubt left at the end of the first Garfield movie, there's absolutely no doubt now.

As much as we love that overweight tabby, he belongs only in the funnies, distilled to sarcastic perfection.

Any attempt to transport him to the big screen and expect him to fill up more than an hour of running time results in a most disastrous dilution of the character he is and the ethos he represents.

Easily the greatest disappointment with Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties is that the voice we're hearing is Bill Murray's.

For those of us who've followed his quirky career through interesting efforts like What About Bob, Groundhog Day and Lost In Translations, it is heartbreaking to see a comic giant reduced to such an unlovable, derivative wretch.

Quite unlike the wry, deliciously sarcastic and insightful avatar in the daily strip, the larger-than-life Garfield is all stomach and nothing else.

The rest of the cast doesn't do much better either, with largely disinterested portrayals of one-dimensional, badly sketched out characters.

And the thoroughly disinteresting sequence of events he stumbles through is as empty as a plate of lasagne after the cat's been through it.

Plainly put, it involves an obscenely rich look-alike, the old switcheroo and a nasty nobleman that doesn't like animals.

There are a few rare laughs in the film, mostly involving routines such as the crotch biting guard dog, made solely for four-year-olds. Indeed, one would be the wiser just staying home and watching Tom and Jerry reruns on the tele.

Or if one insists on being a die-hard Garfield fan, there's always yesterday's newspaper.

Rakesh Mehar

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