Family-sized lasagne is loved by cuddly indoor cat Garfield, but he's not a fan of Mondays. Fair enough, although it seems he has a pretty pampered life living with Jon, who finds him wandering the rainy streets as he dines alone in his favourite Italian restaurant.
Chris Pratt lends his voice to the loveable but greedy moggy, and Samuel L. Jackson brings his scruffy street cat dad Vic to life. Despite a less than favourable Rotten Tomatoes score, I really enjoyed this one. There were some decent one-liners, I liked the animation, and it kept the kids in the screening I attended thoroughly entertained. It's filled with nostalgia, humour, and a touching father/son bonding storyline as they embark on a high stakes dairy farm heist. The Bill Murray era sarcasm is dialled down a bit, but I thought there was a good balance of elements here. Won't give you furballs!
Talking of nostalgia, I rented Death Becomes Her after noticing it made up part of Cineworld's Pride season, and really enjoyed it. The special effects have aged well, given it's over 30 years old, and I particularly liked Bruce Willis's role as Dr Ernest Menville. A huge departure from the likes of Die Hard and other films you'll know him best for. Yippee ki yay!
A novelist loses her man to a smouldering A list movie star and former friend, and subsequently ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Years later, the two (played by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn) both realise that immortality has its consequences, after both drink a potion promising eternal youth. Wonderfully dark and funny.
And Bad Boys : Ride Or Die still boasts a bit of the chemistry seen in earlier films between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but it all feels a bit like they are going through the motions. The plot is wafer thin, although I did miss a bit when I nodded off about 25 minutes in, which might tell you it wasn't the most compelling watch. Something blows up approximately every 33 seconds, and there are several refrains of the famous "Bad Boys, Bad Boys, whatcha gonna do" along the way. A highlight was the end credits...because they feature an excellent new version of one of my favourite Genesis songs by Black Eyed Peas! The rest washed over me really. A perfectly plausible popcorn flick packed full of car chases, shoot outs and Miami beach scenery, but not one to rush to watch on the big screen, in my humble opinion. Will Smith didn't seem to get many of the funny lines in the script this time. His performance was not very punchy, you could say.
As Wendy Ide, my favourite film critic, says in the Observer: "If the bullets mainly find their targets, the jokes do not." She also describes the buddy cop routine between the two leads as "laboured and stale". With four films in the franchise, perhaps it's time for something new, lads?
Next week, Sting, Inside Out 2 and The Hitman. Happy film watching!
Alex B Cann weekly film column
