The Garfield Movie starring Chris Pratt is PANNED ahead of release (2024)

Reviews for the upcoming animated film The Garfield Movie, featuring the voices of Chris Pratt and Samuel L. Jackson, have not been the cat's meow.

According to a synopsis from producers, the film details 'Garfield's (Pratt) unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic (Jackson),' after which 'he and his canine friend Odie (Harvey Guillén) are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.'

The animated movie, directed by Mark Dindal, also features the voices of Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang and Snoop Dogg.

A number of professional film critics included in a compendium of 31 reviews published on the outlet Rotten TomatoesMonday presented a less-than-favorable impression of the film, an adaptation of the popular comic strip that debuted in the late 1970s.

After it debuted at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles Sunday, it is slated to arrive in theaters nationwide on Friday.

IGN Movies critic A.A. Dowd said that while the film 'promisingly echoes the simple art work of its comic-strip inspiration ... what it really takes from the Jim Davis material is a shameless cynicism, evident in the corporate product placement and pandering pop-culture references.'

Dowd said that Pratt’s 'phoned-in performance as a phone-addicted Garfield doesn’t help,' and that 'kids might be mildly entertained, but that doesn’t make this less of a hairball.'

Variety'sCarlos Aguilar said the film 'fundamentally misunderstands Garfield’s appeal as a lovingly indifferent, self-centered glutton whose greatest aspiration is to do nothing and have all his needs catered to him.'

Aguilar described the movie as 'a Garfield movie for audiences who have never heard of Garfield' to reintroduce the character 'in this high-octane, overly stimulated form for a generation with reduced attention spans.'

Aguilar noted the Garfield character's fondness for delivery apps, 'which sets the stage for several instances of shamelessly conspicuous product placement from Walmart to Olive Garden.

'In another example of low-hanging, pop culture-centric, uninspired humor, this Garfield’s favorite pastime is to watch Catflix, a streaming site exclusively dedicated to online cat videos.'

The Movie Cricket's Sean P. Means said, 'I can’t think of the last time I saw a movie as bland generic as The Garfield Movie, which crunches Jim Davis’ misanthropic comic-strip cat into one more piece of pre-digested intellectual property.'

Means said both Pratt and Jackson failed to add any pizazz to the proceedings.

'The first sign of this movie’s lack of imagination is the casting of Chris Pratt as the orange cat with the lasagna fixation,' Means said. 'Once upon a time, Pratt brought a naive charm to the voice work on The Lego Movie.

'But as was apparent with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Pratt has become a name producers write down to voice the main character until they can think of somebody better - and then forget to think of somebody better.'

Means said that while Jackson 'is a gifted actor with a legendary career,' he felt his Garfield performance was phoned-in.

IndieWire's Kate Erbland said that the animated movie couldn't 'escape the glare of corporate synergy,' noting the movie is peppered 'with product placement for everything from Olive Garden to Walmart.'

Erbland asked, 'Is this a kid’s movie or a commercial? And if it’s the latter, a commercial for what exactly?

'Call it a case of the Mondays, but this kitty needs to go way back to the drawing board.'

Screen Rant's Rachel LaBonte said the film fell short on an artistic level: 'Compared to other recent animated movies, The Garfield Movie feels distinctly lackluster, not offering anything original or creatively invigorating.'

LaBonte had a more positive take on the vocal performances, saying that Jackson proved to be 'reliable' and Pratt 'isn't bad as Garfield,' as 'he knows how to find the humor in certain lines and injects some vulnerability into the occasional heavier emotional beat.'

The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck said that a number of meta references written into the film fail to land with either 'the very young target audience' or 'their adult chaperones.

'It’s indicative of the laziness and cynicism permeating this enterprise, which sacrifices the character’s subversive humor in favor of routine animated hijinks.'

Scheck said 'the rudimentary animation does the film no favors, nor does the lead vocal turn by Pratt,' whose work he described as colorless.

'The strange result is a Garfield without attitude,' Scheck said.