Here’s what critics are saying about the animated Garfield Movie starring Chris Pratt and Samuel L. Jackson.
Giving Garfield another reason to hate Mondays, the Rotten Tomatoes score for the fat cat’s big-screen animated adaptation is in the litter box. While the first social media reactions praised the Chris Pratt and Samuel L. Jackson-voiced feature as the “purr-fect” kids’ film, The Garfield Movie reviews are more mixed: the CG-animated movie currently sits on Rotten Tomatoes with a 52% rating at the time of publishing. That’s better than 2004’s half-animated, half-live-action Garfield: The Movie (14%) and its 2006 sequel, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (a cat-astrophic 12%), which is the last time the orange tabby lazed away in theaters.
The Garfield Movie “is as lazy as the cat himself,” ComicBook critic Charlie Ridgely wrote in a 2/5 star review, adding: “The Garfield Movie is largely void of the fun and humor kids crave… Laziness is [Garfield’s] entire M.O., and the production unfortunately followed his lead.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s review by Frank Scheck criticized Garfield as an “uninspired action comedy” that “fails both kids and their parents,” while Variety‘s Carlos Aguilar wrote that Garfield makes his return to the big screen in “a generic, if pleasantly animated narrative that misunderstands the characteristics that make Jim Davis’ Garfield a singularly attractive character.” Reviews are also critical of Garfield’s uncharacteristically energetic action beats — including a sequence referencing Tom Cruise and parodying the action-heavy Mission: Impossible movies — and seem to agree that Pratt pales in comparison to Bill Murray’s turn as the sardonic CG tabby in Garfield: The Movie.
Garfield‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is comparable to Pratt’s last animated outing where he voiced an iconic character, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which received a 59% “rotten” from critics but a 95% audience score and an “A” CinemaScore before going on to gross a jump-worthy $1.3 billion at the global box office. The Garfield Movie has already earned a hefty $49 million from two dozen markets and is projected to open stateside with $35 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend on May 24.
In the new movie from Sony Pictures and director Mark Dindal (The Emperor’s New Groove, Chicken Little), the lasagna-loving, Monday-hating indoor cat is whisked away on a wild outdoor adventure. After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father — scruffy street cat Vic (Jackson) — Garfield and his canine companion Odie (Harvey Guillén) are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist.
The Garfield Movie — also featuring the voices of Hannah Waddingham (The Fall Guy), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible), Cecily Strong (Saturday Night Live), Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso), Bown Yang (SNL), Janelle James (Abbott Elementary), Snoop Dogg (The Underdoggs), and Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Jon — opens in U.S. theaters May 24.
