The Garfield movie a mess where nothing happens and Bill Murray’s biggest regret!
Garfield Movie (Bill Murray’s Biggest Regret!) – Phelan & Allison
The Garfield movie a mess where nothing happens and Bill Murray’s biggest regret!
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Great to see you two collaborate on a movie review. I enjoyed it.
You know as far as looking the part and being able to convey a sort of likable but unlucky every-man John Arbuckle, Brecken Meyer looks the part and could have probably pulled it off with better material. Jennifer Love Hewitt was probably capable of pulling off a disinterested and aloof Liz with better material – maybe? Ultimately there were better picks. Janine Garafolo for sure.
I did a quick Google Search to remind me of the big movies of 2003-2004 to see what other actresses might have been a better pick, and to be fair to casting director: there weren’t a lot of picks that would have fit. That’s not to say there weren’t talented lead actresses, just that Uma Thurman might be too much and Reese Witherspoon gives the same sugary vibe as JLH.
Anyway… Sadly, it would take another decade for the Peanuts movie to show us that you can make a more laid back and faithful adaptation of a comic strip property. This Garfield is so 2000s animated trash junk-food to keep children quiet for 90 minutes.
I remember reading somewhere that originally Odie was going to be CGI as well, but the studio’s budget wasn’t big enough to have 2 CGI animals in the film. I can give that a marginal pass, since Odie is such a mindless character, but the OOC Arlene and Nermal and is another matter. Those 2 were so alien to their characters in the strip that I have to wonder why the writers even bothered saying they were the same characters, and I don’t even know what thinking led to the Bard Garret dog who had no equivalent in the strip.
The same thing happened in the Marmaduke movie: not only was Marmaduke himself completely out of character, but they gave the Winslow family 3 kids instead of the 2 they had in the strip; they made the daughter Barbie/Barbara a teenager when she was just a preteen in the strip, then gave them a superfluous younger daughter who didn’t exist in the first place, plus they added a cat character who wasn’t in the strip at all.
I don’t get it; if you’re going to go against the source material so much, then why claim it’s an adaptation of the strip at all? They might as well just say it’s an original script with original characters, since they don’t resemble their comic counterparts in any way. One could argue they do it for brand recognition, but if you’re going to change a bunch of stuff to the point where your project is a totally different beast, no one’s going to recognize it as the familiar brand you’re allegedly celebrating.
I didn’t know they made a Marmaduke movie, not sure I care – it’s Marmaduke. The joke for today’s comic: He’s Big!
Well, with some of these adaptations they buy up the film rights to a property, and then use that to get people in theaters based on name recognition. Sometimes scripts intended for other properties get made into movies for those properties instead.
Now with Garfield, that’s a big enough name and well known enough that it probably wasn’t the case – it was just a generic 2000s CG/live action Garfield movie to keep your dumb kids quiet for a while – but I would bet Marmaduke started out as a script for a Beethoven or another big dog family film and got recycled since most people don’t know much about Marmaduke besides: He’s Big!