All of these characters appear in a comic book in Comic Strip Land. And as Nermal reads the latest issues of the series, we find the Pet Force in dire trouble from Vetvix, a villainess who has stolen a molecular scrambler gun (the "Moscrambulator") and has been using it on the people of Dorkon, including Emperor Jon and most of the Pet Force heroes. Only Garzooka escapes her evil clutches to find help.
Help turns out to be Garfield, Odie, Arlene, and Nermal. Garzooka gives Odie, Arlene, and Nermal the same super abilities as their counterparts on Dorkon in an attempt to try and stop Vetvix from taking over Comic Strip Land as well. Will Garzooka succeed? Will Garfield be able to help or manage to cause more trouble instead?
Though I know my two girls enjoyed the movie (ages 4 and 8), I have to say that it really wasn't for me. A couple of major things stood in my way.
First, it was computer generated and didn't have a connection to the real world. Though the characters were the same, the artists seemed to make things too clean and shiny. Garfield for me is about the imperfections in life. In the movie, he and his friends have a "comic strip" to do like a job on a television show. Somehow, it removes the setting too far from the everyday.
Second, the voice of Garfield didn't work for me. Instead of Bill Murray, who did the voice in the big screen Garfield movies, or Lorenzo Music, who did the cat's voice in the earlier animated series (and died in 2001), they asked Frank Welker to do it. And though I love Welker, who has been doing the voice of Scooby-Doo and Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo animated series and movies for years among other properties, there's something missing. I suspect that it will just take some getting used to Welker doing the voice.
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