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GARFIELD'S
A TALE OF TWO KITTIES |
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"Nothing Like
Catfighting In a Kid's
Film" |
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Directed by Timothy Hill
- Written by Joel Cohen,
Aec Sokolow, Jim Davis
Starring Breckin Meyer,
Jennifer Love Hewitt,
Bill Murray, Tim Curry
Distributed by 20th
Century Fox -
2006 - 80mins - Rated PG |
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Richard Propes'
Review
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Feral. |
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I will confess that I
had a certain fondness for the original film, "Garfield: The Movie."
Was it anything special? No, not really. I rated it a mere C+, but I
can honestly say I enjoyed the relationship between Jon (Breckin
Meyer) and Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt). I also enjoyed Bill Murray's
voiceover work as Garfield, and the script, while basic, was a tad
sweet and a rather gentle, easygoing film for children.
Fast forward to "Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties," a film that is so
utterly lifeless, predictable and lazy that you will be looking at
your watches before the halfway mark of the film's 80-minute run time.
Director Tim Hill captures, quite literally, none of the ever so
slight charm of the original AND manages to do everything else wrong
in the process.
Meyer and Love Hewitt? They are back for this sequel, but their
performances are so completely irrelevant to the plot that they might
as well phone in their performances.
Oh, wait. They DO.
Meyer was so adorably bland in the first film, but in this sequel he's
just, well, bland. There wasn't a moment where I thought to myself
"This man loves his cat" or "This man, who flies all the way to
England to propose to his girlfriend actually LOVES his girlfriend."
Oddly, Meyer comes off better than Love Hewitt. Hewitt is, at the very
least, an attractive, energetic and enticing young female. In this
film, She's reduced to bad hairstyles, too much make-up and absolutely
none of that quirky charm from the original.
By the way, did you know that Jennifer Love Hewitt has large breasts?
If you didn't already know this fact, "Garfield's A Tale of Two
Kitties" will prove it for you. Somehow, Hill made the marvelous
directing choice to flaunt her breasts with lower-cut dresses in
nearly every scene...this despite the fact that Liz is supposedly
flown to London to speak as a "respected" veterinarian at a supposedly
major animal conservancy conference.
Yeah, right.
Hewitt can act, and watching her flounder here is downright painful.
The same pain is felt in the incredibly forced performances of Billy
Connolly, as Dargis. Connolly essentially spends the entire film
trying to kill a Garfield look alike cat so he can inherit a castle
and turn it into a major resort. <yawn>
What is it about Tim Curry?
I LOVE Tim Curry. I make it a point to see nearly every Tim Curry
film. I'm almost psychotically loyal. Do you have any idea how many
bad films this means I've seen?
Curry is a marvelous actor with tremendous stage credibility, but he's
simply never mastered the art of picking a decent film role. Oh, how I
long for the days of "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Here, Curry voices
the Garfield look-alike cat named Prince (basically reduced to a
British, "royal" version of Garfield). Curry's voice work is, to his
credit, far more appealing and entertaining that Murray's lazy to the
point of distracting return as Garfield.
Listen carefully to some of the other farm animals and you'll hear the
likes of Jane Leeves, Bob Hoskins, Rhys Ifans and Roscoe Lee Browne.
Of course, it's doubtful you'll really care past about, say, the
five-minute mark.
"Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties" is destined for a quick exit from
theatres, judging from the audience of about 10 people sitting
restlessly in the theatre during its opening night performance here in
Indianapolis. The original unexpectedly raced to a $75 million
box-office largely because it was unabashedly kid-friendly.
Unfortunately, director Tim Hill focuses on gimmicks over Garfield and
reduces the sequel to a sad hodgepodge of cutesie animal voices,
stupid gimmicks and shallow dialogue.
In the end, "Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties" passes only on the
strength of Curry's invested performance, Abercrombie's tolerable
performance and, yes it's true, four jokes that actually worked.
Four.
Here's hoping "Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties" uses up the last of
this cat's 9 cinematic lives and we never have to experience this
kittie's litter again. |
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© Written by Richard Propes |
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How We Rated This Film
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TC Candler -
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Jacob Hall
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TC Candler's Comment
n/a
Jacob
Hall's Comment
n/a
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