What two words are most likely to strike fear in your heart? "Drum solo"? "Rock Opera"? "Pink Floyd"? How about this one: "Garfield 2"?
Somehow, it seems like the world hasn’t had enough of watching a fat ginger cat being obnoxious. Worse still, it looks like Bill Murray has signed his voice up again for Garfield 2.
For the embarrassingly uninitiated, Garfield (DVDs) started life as a three-square newspaper comic strip. He was an overweight rude cat, and every day his adventures would go something like this – Square one, Garfield: "I’m hungry"; Square two, Garfield’s owner gives him some food; Square three, Garfield: "Thanks. You twat".
This basic conceit managed to just about stretch itself out to a
number of ten-minute Saturday morning cartoons, but eyebrows were
raised when it was announced that a computer-generated Garfield was to
star in his own movie. Surely an entire film about a cat being an
arsehole wouldn’t stand up. And why was Bill Murray (DVDs) doing the voices?
Here’s where it all gets a bit confusing.
In the cartoon series, Garfield’s voice was provided by Lorenzo
Music, who also did the voice for Peter Venkman in the cartoon series
The Real Ghostbusters. And Peter Venkman was Bill Murray’s Ghostbusters
character. So because Lorenzo Music already did the voice of a Bill
Murray character in a cartoon adaptation of a film, it stands to reason
that Bill Murray could do the voice of Lorenzo Music in a film
adaptation of a cartoon. Or something like that, anyway. Anyway, the film was
rubbish.
Now Bill Murray has apparently decided to revisit Garfield for the
sequel. He’s not someone that likes to be pigeonholed, obviously. After
spending twenty years as the archetypal wise-cracking funnyman, Murray
has since moved on to play a succession of sad old men in the last
three Wes Anderson films, the slightly over-rated Lost In Translation
and in Jim Jarmusch‘s latest offering Broken Flowers. Although critics
love sad Bill, people are now beginning to wonder where funny Bill went.
We don’t know where funny Bill is, but we know where crap cartoon
cat Bill is. Returning to Garfield 2 with Murray are Jennifer Love
Hewitt and Breckin Meyer, while Lucy Davies – Dawn from The Office –
will star as Abby Westminster, the most
stereotypical-sounding Englishwoman in all the world.
Whether you like it or not, Garfield 2 will be released next summer.
[story by Stuart Heritage]