I’m late in getting in contact with the Garfield/20th Century Fox crowd to see if there is a prescreening of the new Garfield movie that is coming out this Friday, so I’ll try to be diligent in posting links to other reviews.
First up we have a disappointed MSNBC:
Despite (Bill Murray) droll delivery and a couple of amusing lines here and there, Murray can?t wring many laughs out of the mostly lame script from returning writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow. (Garfield plays air guitar and sings along to Ted Nugent?s blaring ?Cat Scratch Fever,? for example. Kids might like it, but adults will be bored.)
Cinema End gives it 2 out of 5 starts:
The fat, lazy, lasagna loving cat of Jim Davis? long running comic strip returns to theaters for a second semi-comedic romp in Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. A sure sign of complete creative bankruptcy in any sequel, this time the action shifts overseas to England, where Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) is given the opportunity to do the usual European vacation things, including a pit stop at Buckingham Palace where his dog pal Odie pees on the stoic royal guards.
Movie Web has an exclusive interview with Jim Davis:
Q. With a character so close to you, what goes through your mind when someone comes up to you and says they want to make a movie, and now two movies with such your iconic character?
Jim Davis: Well, I had that opportunity many years ago, but out of respect for Disney, I never wanted to do anything in traditional animation. It wasn’t until computer animation came about that I really thought, ‘Hey, maybe we can make Garfield like this?’ And then, Monsters Inc came out and the fur was blowing in the wind; you can see the weight of the character – ‘Now we’re ready.’ John Davis called and he said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ And I couldn’t wait to meet and get it out. I was really happy with our first effort, the writers worked very hard on the story; we worked on the treatment with the studio. I worked with the maquette and then we scanned that in the image to the computer, and the musculature and the skeleture; we learned a lot and it was such a thrill to see him on the big screen.