Anthomation Assesses Garfield’s Pet Force

Howdy guys, Anthomation here. Because it is Super Bowl weekend, a weekend full of consuming junk food, I shall review a certain cat that is used to this style of eating: Garfield’s Pet Force.

Garfield’s Pet Force is a 2009 direct to video animated film based on characters from the Jim Davis comic strip Garfield and loosely based on the Pet Force novel series. It is the third and final installment of the trilogy that also includes Garfield Gets Real and Garfield’s Fun Fest. It was written by Garfield creator Jim Davis. The film was produced by Paws, Inc., the company behind Garfield, and was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 16, 2009. 

Nothing in the world can make Garfield get involved in anything besides eating, until the muscular super cat Garzooka comes crashing into Cartoon World from the Comic Book universe with terrifying news. Garfield summons up the willpower to join his superhero Garzooka in a fight to save their worlds.

The story is clearly for developing minds, as almost every scene can be predicted before it happens. There are some points where the film tries to incorporate a satirical mood just to shake things up, but causes the film to fall completely flat on its face and revert back to its cliched ways. For example, the film mocks the opening text scene in Star Wars except it makes it clear that the text scrolling away from the screen is not integral to the film. This would be humorous if the film would not flat out tell the audience that is not supposed to be taken seriously and let the audience decide for themselves. Show don’t tell? Did 2nd grade not teach you anything? Overall, it made the film into a total snore feast where looking at one’s phone would be their only saving grace.

The animation clearly had the budget of a direct to video film. The backgrounds are bland with colors that are way too bright and basic. The characters are not rendered very well, and the movements can come across as awkward and ridgedy. Their overall designs are not the most appealing either. In this movie’s defense, it is trying to do the best job to replicate the cartoonish style of the old Garfield comics. Here is the thing, coming across as unpolished can sometimes work in the hand drawn world if it presents some sort of artistic emphasis, but it just comes across as being undisciplined and lazy in the computer animated world.

The characters are just as predictable as the story and fail to stand out from the rest of the movie’s blandness. There is Garfield (voiced by Frank Welker), the couch potato Lorax himself who is sucked into saving the world without any pleasure. Welker also voiced Garzooka, who is Garfield if he took the same serum that Steve Rogers took to become Captain America. It should be noted that all of the main voice actors voice the regular comic strip characters and their superhero counterparts. Gregg Berger voices Odie and Odious, the dog friend of Garfield and the gang who for some reason does not speak. Seriously, why is it that all of the feline characters can talk but the one canine cannot? Does Garfield feel some sort of detest towards dogs? No one knows. Audrey Wasilewski voices Arlene and Starlena, the love interest of Tigger’s pudgey stepbrother. Jason Marsden voices Nermal and  Abnermal, the friend of Garfield who likes to complain and read comics. It is in his comic where the superheroes and villain come out of, so it is his fault that this film even exists. And then there is Vetvix, the villain who wants to take over the world using this gun that can scramble up people and objects that are close in proximity. Also, she looks like the combination of The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George and Lady X from Foodfight! Curse this movie for making me reference Foodfight! The film tries to shoehorn a comedic romance between Vetvix and Emperor Jon, the emperor counterpart to Jon Arbuckle who is the human owner of Garfield, but it adds little to nothing to a film lacking substance. Maybe I am not a big fan of the characters because I was never a Garfield fan, but I would like to think otherwise.

Garfield’s Pet Force is a typical direct to video film, with a predictable story, second rate animation, and bland characters. At best, this could serve as background noise for the little. As a movie worth sitting down and concentrating on, I do not think so. Between Tom Brady winning another Super Bowl and this Garfield film being a bad movie, I would say that this Sunday did not bring out a ton of surprises.

Score:

3/10