Garfield loses his way while JLo struggles with AI in space

The Garfield Movie attempts something new before losing its way, while JLo struggles with AI in sci-fi with more action than science, writes Leigh Paatsch.

From the return of a fat cat that falls flat, to JLo struggling in space and a flawed but fascinating fashionista, it’s a mixed bag on the big screen and streaming this week.

THE GARFIELD MOVIE (G)

Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) in The Garfield Movie.

Director: Mark Dindal (Emperor’s New Groove)

Starring: Voices of Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames.

Rating: ★★½

Can you teach an old cat new tricks?

The Garfield comic strip celebrates its 50th birthday next year, and it is safe to say that little has changed in all that time.

In fact, the whole phenomenon has essentially used the same four storytelling ideas over and over again.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Garfield is fat and lazy, even by cat standards.

Garfield thinks his human owner is an easily misled doofus.

Garfield holds a pointed grudge against Mondays.

Oh, and most importantly of all, Garfield can eat his body weight in lasagne on a daily basis.

Most reasonable minds would assume these vaguely amusing character traits might not be enough to fill an entire movie. Such minds would be assuming wrong.

There were indeed two Garfield movies a few decades ago, and they did big box-office too (despite Bill Murray’s uninterested effort as the voice of the couch-surfing cat).

Now Garfield has been invited to waddle across the screen once more in the name of children’s entertainment. Even though there is every likelihood most children of today wouldn’t have the foggiest idea who he is.

The makers of the all-new The Garfield Movie quickly overcome this challenge by giving the title character an all-new origin story.

Vic, Garfield, Odie and Otto.

In this telling of the tale, the surly, seen-it-all-before Garfield was once an adorable little kitten. Then his shady crook of a dad left him in a box in an alley.

While wandering alone in the big bad city, Garfield happened upon his future owner Jon eating lasagne in an Italian restaurant. The pair clicked instantly, and the Garf soon enjoyed complete control of Jon’s home.

If The Garfield Movie had held the gentle, sweet-natured tone of this early history lesson, the whole production might have turned out far better than it ultimately does.

Soon enough, the grown-up Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt, doing his very best Chris Pratt impersonation) and his long-suffering dog housemate Odie are kidnapped.

A rescue mission led by Garfield’s long-lost dad Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) is hijacked by the feline supervillain Jinx (Hannah Waddingham), who forces Garfield and his entourage to execute a dangerous milk factory heist on her behalf.

Weirdly, the second half of the movie feels as like quite a rushed knock-off of the same plot used for the classic kids flick Chicken Run.

While this section is not without its merits, it does bang on for much longer than it should, adding yet another featured character (Ving Rhames as the hellraising bull Otto) to the mix with little justification.

The Garfield Movie is in cinemas now

ATLAS (M)

Jennifer Lopez in Atlas. Picture: Ana Carballosa/Netflix

Rating: ★★½

Now streaming on Netflix

With artificial intelligence certain to be a hot topic for years to come, we can safely expect a stack of movies about the various threats to humanity posed by AI. Atlas certainly won’t be remembered as the pick of the anti-AI crop, that’s for sure. Which is not to say greatness was ever its goal in the first place. No, this is more an action-science-fiction hybrid where the action is designed to overwhelm and then flatten both the science and the fiction.

Jennifer Lopez stars as Atlas Shepherd, a dynamic data analyst plying her trade in a future where AI’s stranglehold on humanity is reinforced by programmed acts of terrorism. One such AI terrorist, Harlan (Simu Liu), is considered such a danger to mankind that a strike force must travel into space to take him out. Atlas is recruited to the mission primarily because she has a personal insight into the coding that makes him such a clinical killer.

Lopez works very hard to keep this movie together, and she does quite a solid job considering. Production values are quite strong throughout, though not enough to distract you from a story that makes less sense with every minute. Co-stars Sterling K. Brown.

HIGH & LOW: JOHN GALLIANO (M)

Scene from the documentary John Galliano: Low and High.

Rating: ★★★★

Selected cinemas

This genuinely gripping, warts’n’all portrait of the once-legendary fashion designer John Galliano is one of the best documentaries of the year so far. Unlike most couture-conscious docos, High & Low effortlessly penetrates the force-fields of hype and mystique that usually shields the bigger names in fashion. While the doco does a great job in charting Galliano’s astonishing ascension through the 1980s and 90s – a meteoric rise that ultimately handed him the keys to the House of Dior – it is his bewildering fall from grace that truly makes for the most arresting viewing here. Galliano (who willingly fronts this doco throughout) infamously torched his entire career in 2011 when he was filmed unleashing a torrent of reprehensible anti-Jewish slurs in Paris. Just as the journey from celebration to castigation is not as straightforward as it first seems, Galliano’s subsequent attempts to return to top ranks of world fashion are mystifying, to say the least. Highly recommended.