GARFIELD: THE MOVIE — * 1/2 — Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt; the voice of Bill Murray and others; rated PG (violence, vulgarity, mild profanity, brief drugs).
The smartest thing audiences to do with "Garfield: The Movie" — aside from skipping it altogether — is simply stay to watch "Gone Nutty," the five-minute animated short that precedes the film.
That computer-animated, Oscar-nominated short, which features the prehistoric rodent Scrat from "Ice Age," is everything the "Garfield" feature is not. It's clever, it's funny and it knows when to shut up.
"Garfield" is so charmless, so completely devoid of laughs and feels so long — even at 85 minutes — that before it's over, you may want to claw your eyes out.
The film is also very mean-spirited. In particular, there are a couple of scenes of animal cruelty that may upset some sensitive, younger kids in the audience. And that's in addition to the lowbrow flatulence humor, which may be expected from films directed at kids these days, but which is still tasteless and unpleasant.
The plot is as by-the-numbers as it gets, as Garfield (a CGI character voiced by Bill Murray) finds his position as favorite pet in the household threatened by a new arrival. His pushover owner Jon Arbuckle (Breckin Meyer) has just brought home a lovable dope of a dog, named Odie, who is willing to give affection and be obedient — unlike the impudent, mischievous feline. However, when Garfield locks Odie out of the house, the poor pup winds up in the hands of a cruel television personality (Stephen Tobolowsky). So it's up to Garfield to save the day and redeem himself.
The biggest problem here is the script, which is filled with pop-culture references (some of which are as unfunny as they are obscure) and contains very little plot (with shameless plugs for Fox television; the film comes from 20th Century Fox).
So you really can't blame Murray for phoning in his performance. Besides, he's playing off two of the most vanilla-bland performers out there in Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays Jon's love interest.
The only performer who really comes off well at all is the dog playing Odie (an adorable dachshund-terrier mix named Tyler). But it's still unnerving to see him playing off a CGI-created feline.
"Garfield: The Movie" is rated PG for violence (slapstick involving animals, brief fisticuffs and some animals in peril), vulgarity (animal flatulence), scattered use of mild profanity, and some brief drug content (use of over-the-counter medicines). Running time: 90 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com