The first Garfield film was a huge success — with under-eights. For anyone older, it was an ordeal, and the same is true of this undercooked, Prince And The Pauper-style sequel.
This ‘Tale Of Two Kitties’ is yet another Hollywood kids’ film subscribing to the offensive stereotype that Britain is peopled with aristocrats who live on vast estates and are waited on by a devoted and subservient staff. But perhaps realism was never going to be top of the menu in a film about a talking cat. That said, Garfield’s animation is noticeably more convincing this time, allowing him (and doppelgänger Prince, voiced in style by Tim Curry) almost to blend in with the real animal cast — not just Odie, but a whole forgettable and underused menagerie on the estate.
Billy Connolly hams it up manfully as the dastardly Lord Dargis, out to kill the wretched cat and inherit the family estate, and Murray’s drawled (half)witticisms occasionally elicit a giggle. But while the tinies may delight in the slapstick and fart gags that comprise the bulk of the script, this is a long slog for everyone else.