In favor, by Pablo Vázquez
Yes, here is our cat again. And he comes wanting to mess things up. It is as soon as the film begins and he sees him speak to the audience, breaking the fourth wall and telling us his compressed story, to make us think of a cat version of the John Hughes classic ‘All in a Day’ (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1985) in the one in which the fool Odie could embroider an enthusiastic transcript of the Cameron played by Alan Ruck. The plump, orange feline looks like a mix between Ferris Bueller from that inexhaustibly cult film and Bluto Blutarsky played by John Belushi in ‘American Rampage’ (National Lampoon’s Animal House, John Landis, 1978), with a dislike for Mondays and a lust for Italian food. The ideal base for an adventure that surreptitiously shows a keen sympathy for hedonism and disobedience, but without ever forgetting the most immediate interests of the public for which it is intended.
The triumph of this ‘Garfield’ is not so much due to the formula he uses, but rather to the references from which he wants to distance himself. Firstly, it consistently distances itself from the films directed by Peter Hewitt and Tim Hill in 2004 and 2006, of which the only thing to miss is the voice of Bill Murray and the presence of Jennifer Love Hewitt. She also does not feel identified with the drift towards the abyss of transcendence and the mechanisms of social architecture of the latest Disney / Pixar titles. On the contrary, the film is close to the model of the now muscular Dreamworks (‘Trolls’, the Gru saga, and, especially, the ‘Madagascar’ trilogy), at the speed of the neglected ‘Angry Birds. The movie’ (Clay Kaitis, Fergal Reilly, 2016) and to Mike White’s narrative schemes. ‘Garfield. The film’ is, in fact, the work of Mark Dindal, who, within the Mouse House, signed two works that attempted to bring the label closer to the lightness and irony of the overrated but influential ‘Shrek’ (Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001), with mixed results: the very redeemable ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ (2000) and the failed ‘Chicken Little’ (2005).
Armed with the tools of a triumvirate of screenwriters raised in the academy of the “sitcom” and the episodic format, and, therefore, with special skill for dynamism and accelerated and steely replication, Dintal’s ‘Garfield’ is a daughter of its time, an implacable response to current sensibilities, but which is always at the level of the child and not the adult, composing a network of action scenes and very vivid characters that aim to break the tension between the infantile and the infantile. It demonstrates this both in the omnipresence of the use of apps and social networks in its development, and through the approach to codes that, beyond the Dreamworks model, approach phenomena such as ‘Paw Patrol’, ‘Momonsters’ and the cheerful ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ anarchy. Even those most reluctant to use CGI will be able to appreciate the pointillism and attention to detail in the design of the secondary characters, and the succession of energetic “set pieces” that seek to reconcile the essence of Jim Davis’s vignettes with the trepidation of the recent ‘Super Mario Bros. The Movie’ (Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, 2023) and the playful and dizzying spirit of the Aardman vintage, with an honorable mention for a villain, small and bully, who seems to wink at a classic so buried as ‘Gay Purr-ee’ (Abe Levitow, 1962). We are left to add the emotion of a subplot of parent-child reconciliation to a climax that aims to scratch the soul after the incessant and somewhat exhausting succession of misunderstandings and persecutions to have a complete menu capable of satisfying the palate of both the child thirsty for stimuli and the “connoisseur.” ” more rigorous.
Against, by Blai Morell
After various television series, two pestiños in the form of a film that mixed live action and animation with Bill Murray giving voice to the fat orange cat, video games and others, it seemed that the film that was to establish a before and after in the character. And look, it might not be. Firstly, because in some way, it represents a betrayal of the spirit of the character. Despite a promising start in which he curiously coincides with Jon, the human who took him in as a puppy, We soon discover that he is not the ball-playing cat capable of the biggest pranks in the universe.. Those responsible give it an excessive layer of adorableness that is understandable when who you are addressing is the smallest, who are the true recipients of the proposal. But in this way, he discards from the equation the true Garfield fans, men and women in their forties who already have gray hair, who in the end are the ones who will buy the tickets for their children. There we must add that strange feint that he makes at times to want to address a more adult audience with jokes that the kids won’t quite catch, and that squeak amidst the explosion of color and infernal rhythm.
What is proposed here is a kind of origin story mixed with an adventure that involves his father and that evil man, in this case, evil with his henchmen and who decides to reduce Garfield’s relationship with the human who took him in to a minimum, which is actually the basis, along with the relationship with the dog Odie – the best part of the film – of the comic strip. And it is that one has the feeling that here there is more of a laboratory product destined to make pasta (the green one, not the other one, which was already eaten by that lazy feline that hates Mondays), that of artistic sensitivity.
Furthermore, what in the comic strips was conceived as a caustic vision of the “American way of life” through that nihilistic and selfish cat, here all that is absolutely diluted to give way to a film where what matters is the adventure and the action. All courtesy of Mark Dindal, responsible for ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ and ‘Chicken Little’, two Disney films from the time when he returned to the drawer of inconsequentiality after a golden decade like the 90s. Because not even The animation stands out especially: it only shines in a few isolated moments.
Let’s hope that one day someone finds the mojo that takes the character beyond the simple but discreet nice product for the little ones, because, honestly, one is already fed up with reheated lasagna…
Data sheet
Address: Mark Dindal Country: USA Year: 2024 Release date: 01-5-2024 Gender: Comedy Script: Paul A. Kaplan, David Reynolds, Mark Torgove Duration: 101 min.
Synopsis: World-famous Garfield, the Monday-hating, lasagna-loving house cat, is about to have an adventure in the wild outside world! After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – the scruffy stray cat Vic – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced to abandon their perfect, pampered lives by joining Vic in a hilarious and very risky heist.
Charming loser who only wins when he is wrong. Dissident by default. Ferris Bueller of Hacendado. Average writer, bad screenwriter and Nestea fan. Adam Sandler Hooligan. He is usually seen on Instagram @muypococool, where he exposes his pride and shame. He insists on not taking responsibility for what he thinks and writes.
Watching movies since my earliest childhood. I grew up in the theaters with continuous sessions, reruns, and when possible, in the premiere ones, and addicted to the afternoon sessions of TVE and “The Key.” More than 30 years talking and writing about cinema wherever I am needed. I always wanted to be Nick Rivers: “Top Secret” is in my top. I love “The Third Man” and De Palma is my god.
