Chris Pratt
Garfield (voice)
Overview
Garfield, the world-famous, Monday-hating, lasagna-loving indoor cat, is about to have a wild outdoor adventure! After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – scruffy street cat Vic – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
3 min readThe Burden of a Monday
I keep getting stuck on the central contradiction of The Garfield Movie: how do you build a hyperactive 101-minute caper around a character whose entire cultural identity is built on not wanting to move? Jim Davis turned inertia into a comic art form. Garfield lounged, ate, complained, latestnetflix.com argues, and occasionally shoved a dog off a piece of furniture.
That was enough. Mark Dindal’s animated adaptation looks at that beautifully lazy legacy and decides, with corporate politeness, that it needs to be fixed. So the orange cat gets strapped into a high-speed franchise machine and flung through a heist plot.
Dindal at least knows how animation can misbehave. The Emperor’s New Groove and Cats Don’t Dance both run on gloriously rubbery lunacy, and little flashes of that energy survive here. The dairy-farm heist with Garfield and his estranged father Vic has moments that almost feel Looney Tunes-pure: bodies stretch, physics give up, chaos briefly clicks into rhythm. DNEG Animation renders all of it with bright, candy-colored confidence.
The problem isn't that the craft fails. The problem is the mismatch. Garfield as an action hero feels wrong at the molecular level.
Watching him dive into danger while the Mission: Impossible theme blasts is like seeing a sloth discover parkour.
Which brings us to the voice. The internet's exhaustion over Chris Pratt's casting was entirely understandable, and the finished performance is less an outrage than a mild case of missing the point. Pratt isn't bad.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.8/10
"Colorful animation and a sweet father-son arc collide with off-key Garfield characterization and a noisy, generic heist plot."
Bright visuals, cute character designs and the emotional storyline between Garfield and his estranged father land well enough to make this a passable family watch, especially for kids. latestnetflix.com's read is that long-time Garfield followers are far less satisfied, criticizing Chris Pratt’s voice work, a version of Garfield that feels unlike the sarcastic, lazy comic-strip cat, and a story overloaded with action, new side characters, and product placement instead of classic, low-key humor.
What viewers praise
- Appealing animation The film’s polished, bouncy animation style and expressive visuals are frequently singled out as one of its strongest elements.
- Cute and kid-friendly Many comments describe it as a cute, fast-moving movie that keeps children entertained, even if adults find it forgettable.
- Emotional father-son thread The relationship between Garfield and his father Vic, including Garfield’s childhood scenes, is often noted as surprisingly touching.
- Entertaining supporting performance Samuel L. Jackson’s turn as Vic is praised for bringing energy and personality to the character.
- Light, easy viewing Several viewers call it a decent one-time watch that passes quickly and works as background or comfort viewing.
Common complaints
- Out-of-character Garfield Garfield is described as a generic, hyperactive modern cartoon lead rather than a lazy, sardonic, Monday-hating cat, which frustrates long-time followers.
- Divisive voice casting Chris Pratt’s voice is widely criticized as sounding like himself instead of Garfield, weakening the character’s identity.
- Generic action-heist story The high-stakes heist plot, with trains, mafioso animals and action beats, is seen as overcomplicated and far removed from classic Garfield scenarios.
- Weak comedy and pacing Jokes are often called unfunny or dragged out, with some viewers finding the pacing sluggish and the story padded.
- Missing classic Garfield flavor Frequent complaints focus on underused or absent familiar characters like Arlene and Nermal, intrusive product placement, and a tone that feels more like generic franchise animation than a true Garfield story.
Recommended for
Families with young kids Casual animation watchers Lighthearted heist-comedy seekers Samuel L. Jackson voice-role fans Undemanding weekend viewing Garfield completists
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsGarfield’s Off-Screen Chaos: Casting Outrage, Cut Songs & Corporate Lasagna Plots
The world’s laziest cat accidentally stirred up one of 2024’s noisiest little pop‑culture storms. latestnetflix.com's view is that From fan uprisings over Chris Pratt to a villain song that got chopped at the last minute and a product-placement scandal that has critics yelling “corporate psyop,” The Garfield Movie’s real drama is happening outside the litter box.
Cast Feuds & Tea (a.k.a. The Chris Pratt Wars)
- When Chris Pratt was announced as Garfield, longtime fans practically coughed up a hairball. A Change.org petition titled “Remove Chris Pratt from the Garfield Movie” blasted the choice, arguing he’s a “samey” celebrity stunt-cast who doesn’t fit Garfield’s vibe at all
. - Over on Reddit, fans called the casting “pretty terrible,” accusing studio execs of not caring about what Garfield was and instead “re-creating it as something else” with A‑list voices
. - Another Reddit thread fumed that as a “HUGE Garfield fan,” hearing Pratt “being himself” instead of a distinct Garfield voice was “unfathomably upsetting” .
- Meanwhile, Chris Pratt has calmly pointed out that Jim Davis himself signed off on the choice. Davis reportedly felt Pratt’s performance embraced “all sides of the character,” not just the classic deadpan snark . The fandom may be divided, but the cat’s creator is firmly Team Chris.
Leaks & Secrets: The Hannah Waddingham Song That Got Axed
- Hannah Waddingham (Jinx) didn’t just purr menacing one-liners — she recorded a full villain musical number, “I’m Back,” where Jinx sings her whole tragic backstory to Garfield and Vic: prize show cat, meets Vic on tour, gets double-crossed, ends up in the pound…the drama!
- The number was storyboarded by Stephen J. Anderson (Meet the Robinsons) and was meant to be a full-on musical showcase for Waddingham’s Broadway pipes .
- Then reality hit: the actors’ strike delayed when Waddingham could record. By the time she finally laid down vocals, there wasn’t enough schedule left to fully animate the elaborate sequence for theatrical release .
- The compromise: the song plays over the end credits and the full animatic lives as a digital extra, instead of being a big in-movie showstopper . Fans who’ve seen the animatic online now treat it like lost Garfield lore — the cult-fave “what could have been” of the film.
Scandals & Controversies: Is This Movie Just One Giant Ad?
- Critics and fans have torched The Garfield Movie for stuffing more brands into its runtime than lasagna into Garfield’s face. One reviewer straight-up calls it “brand marketing” dressed as a movie, pointing to “blatant product placement” that makes the film feel like a “cynical cash grab” .
- A widely shared piece dubs it “a glaring example of brand sponsorship,” noting how awkwardly real companies are shoehorned into key moments:
- Olive Garden – logo appears three separate times.
- Netflix-as-‘Catflix’ – Garfield watches kitten videos while the Netflix branding lingers on screen.
- Walmart – Garfield uses the Walmart app for convenient home delivery.
- Popchips – a big, front-facing bag boasting “50% less fat” parks itself near Garfield like a supporting character.
- FedEx – swoops in for speedy deliveries, highlighted as being extra fast .
- Another commentator ups the stakes, arguing the whole thing feels like a corporate psyop: the plot leans heavily on drone deliveries (including a pizza‑drone action climax), which just happens to dovetail with Sony’s real-world interest in drone tech. According to this take, the film is essentially teaching kids “drones are our friends” while selling chips, shipping, and chain-restaurant pasta .
- On Reddit, fed-up fans complain the movie is “full of needless product placement” and that the original Garfield comics would’ve mocked this kind of consumerism instead of drowning in it .
Romance Rumors & Red-Carpet Purrs
- While the movie sparked fan drama, Chris Pratt’s actual love life around the release has been strictly wholesome. At the Los Angeles premiere, he walked the orange carpet with wife Katherine Schwarzenegger, both in coordinated Paul Smith looks, beaming next to a life-size Garfield .
- Pratt later revealed he’s actively trying to get Katherine on screen with him: “I’ve asked her. I think she could be great,” he told press, adding she’s surprisingly good at impressions but worries she’d just laugh through every take .
- No cheating scandals, no messy breakups — just a man trying to turn his marriage into a rom-com casting opportunity.
On-Set Energy & Bloopers
- In promotional footage, Samuel L. Jackson gleefully teases Pratt for leaning too hard into his inner cat while recording, joking about how into character he got as Garfield . It reads more like fun uncle energy than feud, but fans have been looping the clips as “Sam roasting Chris” content.
- A Screen Rant–released gag reel shows Pratt, Hannah Waddingham and co. cracking up in the booth, flubbing lines and turning even villain threats into total chaos — the vibe being that no one could stay serious around Waddingham’s theatrical Jinx for long .
Wild Trivia & Fan Theories
- The movie’s darker tones and heist plot helped resurface classic nightmare Garfield fan theories in the press — especially the idea that everything in Garfield’s world is a hallucination or dying dream, a “dark fan theory” that outlets keep labeling as “wild” and “mind blowing” .
- Online, fans have also over-analyzed the film’s post-credits scene, which has been described as a “slightly different take” on the usual superhero-style stinger. Comment sections are packed with speculation that it quietly tees up a bigger franchise or meta-Garfield universe
. Nothing confirmed yet, but rumor has it the sequel chatter isn’t just fan fiction.
In the end, The Garfield Movie accidentally became the most chaotic conversation starter in kids’ animation: a family film fronted by a polarizing Marvel star, kneecapped by a missing villain banger, wrapped in drone propaganda and snack ads, and followed by a fandom that loves this lazy cat too much to stay quiet about it.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.