Caterwaul

REVIEWED - GARFIELD: There has always been something numbingly depressing about Garfield (the cat, not the 20th US president) and all his followers. To an even greater extent than his frequent page-mate Hagar the Horrible, the orange tabby with the taste for lasagne has allowed irritatingly peppy, aggressively affirmative newspaper readers to dip into the exciting world of recreational cynicism once a day without properly committing themselves, writes Donald Clarke.

The version of Garfield that sticks itself to the inside of car windows is surely one of the most desperate of contemporary icons. "Let me out!" he seems to implore. "I am trapped in a vehicle with people who find this funny."

All of which is an attempt to delay finding something interesting to say about the underwhelming film version which is - to a greater extent than anything else I can name - exactly what it is and no more. The CGI cat, voiced with uncharacteristic and entirely inappropriate vigour by Bill Murray, would have been denounced as the work of witches a decade ago, but is now merely adequate.

The dachshund, the lasagne and all the other actors are real. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays the love interest, wears the same figure-hugging dress she has been wearing for the last decade. Breckin Meyer, who plays Garfield's owner, is that bloke who is in everything, but whose name you never bothered learning.

What else do you need to know? Does Garfield dance around to James Brown's I Feel Good? Of course. Is the film a dull, cynical waste of celluloid? It is.

I'll meet you at the river with the sack and the rocks.