‘I’m not doing the ugly American thing,’ says Garfield (Bill Murray) in this souped-up sequel to 2004’s pretty awful Garfield, which takes the feline sour-puss off in a much more plot-driven direction and generates a good few laughs in the process.Murray has made a big deal of saying he regrets making two movies as the voice of Garfield, but for the record, I have no regrets at all about watching the second installment of the adventures of this animated cat.
As the title suggests, Tim Hill’s film uses Charles Dickens as a jumping off point, although The Prince and the Pauper’s dual protagonist is also a clear inspiration. Garfield stows away with his doggy-pal Odie when his own heads to London on holiday, but unknown to them, lookalike Prince (voiced by Tim Curry) has been exiled from his castle after inheriting it; the nefarious Lord Manfred Dargis (Billy Connolly) is responsible.
When Garfield meets Prince, predictable music-hall mirror gags abide, but there’s also plenty of life in the minor characters, with Ian Abercrombie, Roger Rees and Lucy Davis all having a laugh. A Tale of Two Kitties was less than enthusiastically received in 2006, but it looks much brighter in the light of cheap imitations like The Queen’s Corgi; predicable gags like Garfield getting chased by palace guards while shouting ‘The British are coming!’ or Garfield’s doppelganger saying ‘I used to be formerly known as Prince’ hit exactly the right spot.
And the perennially underused Billy Connolly shines in a role presumably intended for, and rejected by John Cleese; the Glasgow comic throws himself into the role of thwarted wannabe aristocrat with genuine glee. He’s every bit as good in this as he was in Muppets’ Treasure Island, and regular readers will know that is as high praise as this writer can bestow. Essential cinema.
If memory serves, you also had a splendid defense of a Top Cat film. Or Tom and Jerry. Or both? Am I sensing a feline bias?
Both. You are correctly reading between the lines, I’m a cat person, although dogs are cool too.
Come to think of it, a soft-rebooted 3rd Garfield film with Bill Murray probably would do pretty well around now (not that he’ll ever agree to do it). Honestly, any big-budget Garfield film would probably do great because of its branding — it seems like anything that’s already a household name has a shot at being a major film franchise, despite COVID still lingering.
If The Emoji Movie can somehow made 4x its budget, I see no reason why Garfield wouldn’t be able to thrive in theaters. I’m honestly surprised Garfield hasn’t been rebooted for the big screen already.
I’m throwing my hat into the ring to revive the franchise; they must have enough off-cuts of Bill Murray that I could construct a film around?
Marked improvement on the original but you could not do better for a bored/languid voice than Bill Murray.
I do wonder how it came to easily to him…
He must have worked hard at that persona.
So no-one else watched the trailer? It’s dubbed in Spanish!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Why should we exclude Spanish people from enjoying this film? It’s for everyone!
That’s fine, but seeing as your blog is written in English, and your folllowers respond in English, it might have been a good idea to put the English version up there as well. entiendes mi amigo?
In post Brexit UK, I intend to service our international readers without prejudice.
Load of horse dung. If that were the case you’d have posted the video in all languages not just spanish. Pfft.
International banking language.
Double pfft.
Right,Little Miss Smartypants, I’ve replaced my Garfield 2 trailer with one that is not in the international banking language. Happy? HAPPY?
I had to find the subtitles, the subtitles are in Italian. You can go to the settings in the youtube trailer that says you can auto translate into English which I did. By which time the trailer had ended. So I pressed replay and they had been translated into English. For the benefit of our English speaking readers I will give you the translated first minute, after that I lost the will to live.
‘he dosed the vestals since the artist flares a ne of zero thorn merits of the savoy not of nine after the reconquest he experienced a whack a mer for political purposes.’
Bliddy ridiculous carry on. Please confine yourself to English speaking trailers in future.
I’ve just looked at the trailer on the bottom on my Garfield 2 review and the trailer and subs are in English.
That quote sounds like a review by one of our Candian friends…
Well that’s just weird then.
I’ll send this to the Supreme Court for a final set of guidance.
That cat doesn’t look anything like Garfield.
Which cat? They both look like Garfield to me.
Describe Garfield.
Ahhh, the mythical Garfield 2 movie review. I am glad it has finally seen the light of day.
And Billy Bones was a fantastic role 😀
This is probably the best film ever made. Pulling out all the big guns now.
Well, it’s what we deserve after a review of a music video after all.
No time for this snobbery, that music video was better than most films. FACt!
I won’t disagree with your assessment of most films 😉
It’s no Garfield 2.
Any movie that has the same guy as Billy Bones has to be good….
Connolly is something of a legend, met him as a BAFTA party once, which makes you one degree from Billy Bones himself.
I always knew there was something special about me.
One more stepping stone on my path towards world domination I guess. Baby steps….
Warmest congratulations, your friends will be jealous!
Thank you, thank you.
I feel that my followers really deserve such an honor as knowing me. So how’s it feel, knowing someone like me?
It’s an honour and a thrill.