Customer Reviews

Garfield's Funfest

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Imagine a story in which a funny cartoon cat gets abducted by aliens. He's replaced by a cat that's not funny and not a cartoon. That doesn't happen in this story, but it might as well. What does happen is that Garfield loses his "funny". That gives the writers a chance to lose theirs. Garfield supposedly gets his funny back at the end of the show. The writers never get theirs back.

The idea seems to be to see how far Garfield can break the mold. How un-Garfield can you get and still have him vaguely recognizable enough for branding? There's a trend in animation to take something that works and keep breaking it until it doesn't, and to staff studios with shirts who apparently can't tell the difference. But it's hard to believe audiences can't tell either.

When Garfield first appeared in the funny papers in 1978, it was slammed as the least funny comic in existence. Arguably it became the funniest comic in existence. In its thirty plus years, it's changed a lot, and in many ways gotten better. Garfield TV specials won Emmy awards and built Phil Roman's gargantuan Film Roman animation studio. Twenty years in, Jim Davis managed to buy the rights back from the syndicate. Fox's Garfield and Friends is arguably yet one of the best kids' cartoon series of all time.

What to do? How about a live action movie? How about various sorts of CGI shorts and featurettes? Instead of using the proven characters from Garfield and U.S. Acres, how about just inventing new ones? And lastly, why should Garfield be funny? Must he kick Odie off the table? Must he be so satirical and sardonic? What if he were warm and romantic and friendly and lovable, with no sharp edges, no barbed wit, more, uh, bland?

If the idea is to have a moral, maybe the writers could learn from Veggie Tales, who still manage to be lighter and wittier than 90 per cent of cartoons, and certainly than this one. Once again, I must quote Joe Barbera in favor of cartoons that are "mindlessly funny instead of mindlessly preachy". This new, improved Garfield may appeal to some viewers, but those who want the old, funny one might check out: Garfield and Friends, Volume OneGarfield and Friends, Volume TwoGarfield and Friends, Volume ThreeGarfield and Friends, Volume FourGarfield and Friends, Volume FiveGarfield Cat Tales - (Garfield as Himself / Garfield Fantasies / Garfield Travel Adventures)

After a recent run of sub par animated feature films, I really went into this one with low expectations. After all, I reasoned, 20th Century-Fox has decided to release this one straight-to-DVD after only a brief appearance on cable television.

In spite of my clouded prospects (or perhaps due to them), this one actually turned out much, much better than expected. Is there danger of mistaking it for the next Pixar or DreamWorks mega hit? Probably not, although realistically speaking, the visuals are easily on par. The source material, after all, has been around for 30 years now and the CGI animated feature film medium is an absolutely irresistible place for popular cartoons to venture into after decades of 2D drawings and cartoon attempts. All factors considering, this film succeeds in many of the key areas that typically separate the entries of the "big boys" from the direct-to-DVD fodder. But before we get into that, let's recap the tale, shall we?

Proving that the title is no mere clever pun, this film opens with Garfield and Jon in the employ of Cartoon World, a studio that produces comic strips by filming the cartoon characters in action. Somewhere in here there is irony in the notion of videoing a computer-generated image with the hopes of turning it into a 2D black and white comic but I digress.

It's a special time at Cartoon World, because the annual Fun Fest talent competition is fast approaching, and everyone in the city (even the mute Odie) want in on the action. The grand prize, it turns out, is top billing in the newspaper's Funnies section and with that the spoils of popularity.

Since he wins the event year after year, Garfield half-heartedly prepares a stand-up routine with his girlfriend Arlene despite her incessant suggesting that they devise a dance routine this year.

Perhaps his victory would be assured even without much preparation except that a newcomer to Cartoon World, Ramone of Ramone's Rough Riders, sets his sights on Arlene and just so happens to be a master of the tango.

Realizing that he's no longer the only solid act in town, Garfield sets off on an epic quest to secure mystical (and possible mythical) "funny water" said to be enchant its drinker with the gift of comedy.

If this all sounds a bit convoluted, rest assured, I thought the same thing going in. And this oddity lasts throughout the first quarter of the film. A flimsy plot, weak dialog and an overly grumpy, cynical and sometimes just plain nasty Garfield don't help matters either. However, the key to maximizing the overall experience is to take heart in the ideal that things will get better by the end- and that they do.

The "fun fest" gimmick is revealed to be more of a plot device to motivate the true story here, which, not unlike Kung-Fu Panda, is a tale of discovering the potential within each of us through mystical training with an Eastern Philosophy flavor.

The humor starts gain traction in the segment where Garfield and Arlene reenact several Hollywood scenes in preparation for the contest and really continues with consistency till the conclusion. Of course there are a few misses along the way (jokes based on the phrase "poopy-head" and in what can only be described as a major gaffe in having Garfield tell his competing friend "you suck").

Again though, questionable dialog for young kids aside, the visuals are downright spectacular with so many layers of rendered goodness going on that some of the segments have to be freeze-framed to be fully appreciated.

Extras are essentially nonexistent here, consisting only of two DVD-Rom games (although there is a cool little booklet in the DVD case in which writer Jim Davis shares some of his favorite Garfield strips throughout the decades).

In all, this one succeeds in the end but not without a few hiccups. The visuals alone will keep youngsters and most adults enamored and the humor (once it builds momentum) is quite serviceable for both young and old. The dialog could stand to use a little polish (and perhaps editing) but the experience is a recommended one.

My boys liked it, but not as much as just watching the TV show, but cute.

I admit it; Garfield's second CGI-animated movie is way better than the first (that's "Garfield Gets Real", by the way) ! It's a new and original movie done by creator Jim Davis himself: "Garfield's Fun Fest" !

It's that time of the year again: the annual Fun Fest talent show ! Everyone is excited about the event, even though Garfield wins it every year. This year, however, Garfield's lost his touch; he's not funny, and worse, a newcomer named Ramon has challenged him to the event by taking his girl Arlene away. After reading a story about a fabled pond filled with "funny water", he and Odie decide to go in search of that pond. But this journey turned into more of a quest as the two enter a forest of creatures that test their skills at being funny. Even after Garfield has finally found the "funny water", he finally realizes that being funny comes from the talent deep within.

So, yeah, this is one of the best animated movies I've ever seen when it premiered on Cartoon Network. It features the voices of legendary funny man Tim Conway and the multi-talented Frank Welker as Garfield and Odie (I think). This movie is really a great addition to "Garfield Gets Real" if you don't have it yet. Believe me; that Garfield is as funny as he is lazy !

I am looking forward to this DVD.

Garfield is such a great character, that any movie with him in it, is a good one!



I'd like to see a Garfield Christmas Movie on DVD. They can call it "Garfield: Season's Eatings!"

And a Garfield Halloween movie, "Garfield and the Legend of the Lasagna Monster!"

What's really scary? I'm an adult.