Bill Murray's botched, terrible film deserves an apology

Bill Murray is responsible for one of Hollywood's best apocrypha – an anecdote so funny that we'd rather believe it than not.

In an interview with GQMurray told the story of how he came to lend his voice to Garfield in the widely panned 2004 adaptation of the long-running comic strip.

“I thought it would be kind of fun because doing a voice is a challenge and I'd never done it before,” he said in the casual interview. “Plus, I looked at the script and it said 'So-and-so and Joel Coen'. And I thought: God, I love those Coens!”

When he recorded his lines months later, he was horrified at how bad the dialogue was. When he asked to see the film to see what he was working with, he was even more shocked: “I kept asking, 'Who the hell edited this thing? Who did that? What the Fuck did Coen think?'”

And here is the infamous twist of this story: “And then they explained it to me: It was not written by The Joel Coen.”

No, Joel Cohen – with an “H” – co-wrote the live-action animated film that became one of Murray's most notorious projects. His lasting legacy is this self-deprecating tale of the worst kind of misunderstanding, the reason for the maxim “assumptions make a fool of you and me.” That this story, which the film crew later denied, was still so funny six years after the film's release – and is so indelible today, 20 years later – shows just how much people hated it. Garfield – The Movie.

But how many of these people actually saw it? After watching The Garfield Moviethe cat's hideous new movie, I decided it was high time I watched his infamous debut film.

And you know what? It's not that bad! It's certainly not a Coen film – most of the lines of dialogue, of which there must be thousands, land with an eye-rolling bang and the story is robbed of any thematic depth. But so is the Garfield Comics for the most part – three-panel stories whose punchlines mostly revolve around the appetite of their apathetic antihero. But Murray's performance is full of Garfield's appealing brand of cynicism, selfishness and misanthropy, making the film feel like the adaptation of Garfield that we deserve, even if not the one we wanted.

Garfield follows Garfield (Murray) as he comes to terms with his new roommate, the dog Odie – an extremely lovable live-action dog, although Garfield is animated. Maybe that's because he never speaks, but all the other animals are also live-action, even though they speak. It's weird, but it's better not to challenge Garfield's internal logic. The point is that Garfield naturally resents Odie stealing the attention of their owner Jon (Breckin Meyer). Although Odie shows Garfield immediate affection, Garfield plans to kick Odie out of the house. When that works too well and Odie is kidnapped, Garfield tries to find the lost dog and bring him home.

This is actually a really sweet story, especially compared to the completely bland, smartphone-confused premise of 2024 Garfield – The Movie. Murray does a good job of portraying Garfield's slow transformation from narcissistic only child to loving older brother, while retaining both his own and the cat's distinctive brand of snarkiness.

And that sarcasm is sometimes even funny! “Sometimes,” because with a script this incessantly wordy, the success rate is doomed from the start. But this film understands that Garfield is more than just lasagna and a hater of montages. In one scene, he reluctantly catches a mouse for Jon – “I'm not the hunting type” – only to reveal that he kept the mouse in his cheek. He gets the credit for seeming like he got off his lazy butt and accomplished something, when in fact he's friends with the mouse, who has agreed to keep his cool in exchange for some kind of cookie.

The whole scene feels like something out of a cartoon, with Jon running around helplessly trying to squash a mouse that his own cat won't even touch. Jon says something predictable about how useless Garfield is, and Garfield has a snarky retort that only the audience can hear. He ends up doing something stupid to appease his owner and entertain us. It's textbook stuff in a way that might seem boring to viewers. But compared to the new film, in which the balance is skewed in the other direction—Garfield rarely puts himself above others and feels surprisingly unreserved affection for Odie and Jon—the 2004 film is Garfield feels refreshingly familiar.

Most importantly, Murray's familiar voice gives the character something believable, even acceptable, in the face of a turgid script. It's hardly hilarious, but it's often amusing, thanks almost entirely to the idiosyncratic comedian. Murray is no Lorenzo Music, the legend who played Garfield in the fan-favorite Garfield and friends Cartoon, he does a good job of capturing the listless quality that makes Garfield iconic and lovable. And he's no Chris Pratt, the voice of Garfield in the new movie — a performance so slurred that it's unclear whether Pratt even knew he was supposed to be playing Garfield and not some other cartoon character. It goes without saying that's a compliment, considering Pratt has been soft-spoken ever since he left. Parks and Recreation.

Murray is Garfield's pivotal point, which in retrospect makes his repeated disses a kind of crap. One of ZombielandOne of the most memorable moments is when the zombified Murray makes a cameo appearance just before his death and admits that his only regret is: “Garfieldmaybe.” And perhaps he can't be blamed, because the film was panned by critics – which, it must be said, didn't hurt its box office performance in the slightest; the film grossed over $200 million on a $50 million budget. Murray, however, has often been singled out as the film's saving grace, the bright spot in a film with a dismal 14 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating.

I would, however, defend myself against some of the criticisms of the film itself. Richard Roeper said it lacked energy – but who would expect energy from Garfield? Perhaps the film is not “dyspeptic, laconic or subversive about the inner workings of animals”, as the Austin Chronicle argues that the comics are. But I also think that we Garfield Comics a bit too much praise – using the word “dyspeptic” to describe it is almost self-parodically presumptuous. (This review makes a funny point about how violent the film is, which I suspect is actually a Garfield trademark, given the absurd violence of The Garfield Movie.) And yes, the film is a total smash hit with product placement and has a terrible, extended dance scene to a Black Eyed Peas song. It's not high art, and the more open-minded viewer can tolerate this brief suffering in stride.

©20thCentFox/Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Maybe I am a little kinder to this film because I see it 20 years later and only because I have another Garfield Film that I thought was much worse. Garfield 2004 hardly ranks among the high points of Bill Murray's career. But who the hell would expect it to? We have “so bad it's good” for a reason; and while I don't even know if I'd dare to call it that, it certainly isn't “so bad it's bad.”

At least it is significant that Murray was still talking about it six years later: Garfield is unforgettable, and that can't be said about many films of this kind – or even this franchise.