When you gotta steal….steal from the best. So the makers of Garfield 2 take the title from Dickens and the plot from Mark Twain. I’m not sure that the results will earn a place on the shelf with those works.
Garfield (again CGI and voiced by Bill Murray) is in a pickle. His master Jon (Breckin Meyer) is going to propose to his veterinarian girlfriend Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt). However, the fat cat thinks that this will wreck his happy home so he’s up to mischief to keep that from happening. It helps matters that Jon is pretty bad at getting the proposal out. He almost gets it done but Liz makes the announcement that she’s going to England to be a speaker at an animal conference.
Jon decides that he’s going to follow Liz to England and finally propose and Garfield and Odie sneak into the luggage to make sure that doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, back in jolly ole’ England on the Carlyle estate, the will of the recently deceased Lady Carlyle is being read by her solicitors (Roger Rees, Jane Carr, and Oliver Muirhead). She’s left the entire estate to her beloved cat Prince (voiced by Tim Curry) - much to the annoyance of her devious nephew Lord Dargis (Billy Connolly) who has other plans for the vast estate. Prince is waited upon as royalty by the loyal butler Smithee (Ian Abercrombie) and his royal assistant Winston the bulldog (Bob Hoskins).
Unfortunately, there is a clause in the will that if Prince dies then the estate reverts to Dargis. So Dargis loads Prince into a picnic basket and throws him into the river. Garfield is wandering around London looking to keep Jon from proposing and Smithee mistakes him for Prince.
Prince also ends up in London and Jon mistakes him for Garfield. So now the corpulent Garfield is living the life of a king and Prince is living a middle class life. The Carlyle barnyard animals decide to put up with Garfield so that Dargis’ plans to turn the estate into a health spa will not come to fruition.
Garfield is out on the town in London
A Tale of Two Kitties is definitely aimed at the kiddies. If they liked the first one, then you’re kids will really love this one - though it has a bit of “jump the shark” since taking the movie to a foreign land is a staple of sitcoms. Adults beware since they’re a lot of worn fart jokes, cat humor references, and pop-culture references (some of which the kids won’t get). The movie wasn’t exactly terrible, but the younger you are the better the movie will be. The movie is also presented in a somewhat screwy way on DVD (more on that in a minute).
A Tale of Two Kitties is presented in both fullscreen and anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 televisions….kinda. Here’s the deal, there are two cuts of the film on the DVD. One is the theatrical version running 78 minutes and the other is an extended cut running 86 minutes. Oddly, the theatrical cut which would’ve been exhibited at 1.85:1 in theaters is presented in fullscreen and the extended cut is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen.
I suppose that you do actually get the film in widescreen, but what of widescreen advocates that prefer the theatrical cut? Guess they’re out of luck. Special features are also geared towards the kiddies. First off there’s the “Come and Get It” music video by Brian Anthony.
Next we have animator Jim Davis showing us how to draw three characters – Garfield (3 minutes), Odie (2 minutes), and Pooky (2 minutes). Finally there’s an exclusive Garfield comic strip (3 panels that you can zoom in on), Odie’s Photo Album game, and Garfield’s Maze game.
Prince is a pampered Kitty with a familiar face
A Tale of Two Kitties is aimed at the young ‘uns in you house and adults might find themselves looking at their watch (choose the theatrical cut, you’ll get out 8 minutes earlier).
Garfield - A Tale of Two Kitties is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a Dec. 11th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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