745. Garfield 2: A Tail Of Two Kitties (2006)

Starring: Bill Murray, Breckin Meyer, Billy Connolly

Director: Tim Hill

Running Time: 86 mins

Garfield 2: A Tail Of Two Kitties is an American film and the sequel to Garfield, where the fat cat, Odie, John and Liz travel to London, and a case of mistaken identity leaves Garfield in the place of an aristocratic feline named Prince, while Prince himself ends up stuck with Odie.

I’m so glad that this was the last film in this horror show of a franchise. The first film had some degree of jokes in it (a small degree, I’ll admit), and a relatively enjoyable story, whereas this has neither of those, just an hour and a half of pure annoyance, with the only saving grace being Bill Murray’s voice performance.

So we’ll start there then, effectively the only positive of this film, but it is a strong positive. Bill Murray, although he correctly admits his regrets of Garfield in Zombieland, puts in a really good show as Garfield, mainly because he can play a slob really well, but not only that, he’s fun enough for the kids to enjoy, and his voice just seems to perfectly suit that fat tabby cat, so well done to him.

However, the rest of this film is depressingly awful. I didn’t laugh once. I saw it when I was about 9, and I don’t remember laughing then, which is really saying something, because unlike the fun-loving first film, this is so bad that even the kids won’t enjoy it, let alone the adults who’ll be retching for the entire duration.

Even worse, this film tries even harder than the first to be entertaining for adults as well as kids, with references to such films as Silence Of The Lambs and Pulp Fiction, references to Fawlty Towers and other such British institutions, and in the process, it loses the kids’ interest too, meaning that this film doesn’t work for anyone.

One of the other most disappointing things about this film is that there are some big names in it, but they’re put to such waste. Billy Connolly’s unfunny Basil Fawlty copy is just annoying, Bob Hoskins and Tim Curry put their voices to animals to which they are very poorly suited, and there are so many more that show how truly bad this film is.

Overall, then, this gets a 4.0, because apart from Bill Murray, this film is horrifically unfunny, not even good enough for kids, and just too tedious and idiotic to even bother with. (Even the title’s unfunny double pun annoys me.)