THE GARFIELD MOVIE is a deviation from traditional Garfield comic strip, television programs and movies in the sense that it’s an intense action adventure, heist movie with Garfield betraying his previous languid nature to be a very active cat trying to solve the plot problem. The movie has a strong father son storyline with the action adventure propelled by a very scary, vengeful cat named Jinx.

The opening in the movie is typical Garfield. Garfield is ordering on his cellphone pizza and Italian food to be delivered. A drone delivers the food to his owner, Jon’s, house. Garfield tells us he’s will take us back to the beginning to show how he gained the sumptuous lifestyle that he so richly deserves.

In the beginning, little Garfield is in an alley with his father telling Garfield he’ll be right back as soon as he finds some food. Garfield looks across the street and sees a single man eating at an Italian restaurant. He barely crosses the street against the trials of traffic and looks in the window until Jon sees him and brings him inside, at which point Garfield scarfs up as much food as he can. Jon takes Garfield home, where Garfield meets the dog, Odie, who becomes Garfield’s servant and waiter.

Soon, Garfield is caught in a trap by two thugs, who take him and Odie to an abandoned mall, where an evil cat named Jinx awaits. Suddenly, Garfield’s father, Vic, shows up to rescue Garfield, but Garfield is still angry with the father who abandoned him. Jinx says Vic also abandoned her when they were stealing some milk from Lactose Farms, and she was incarcerated for a long time. She tells Vic, Garfield and Odie that she will let them go if they steal milk from Lactose Farms, one bottle for each day she was imprisoned.

They go off to do that and find out Lactose Farms has been bought by a big corporation and now has a petting zoo. In a field overlooking the farm, they find Otto the Bull, who was cast out of Lactose Farms even though he’s the bull who’s in all the Farm’s ads with his beloved cow Ethel. Otto tells them they can’t get into the well-guarded Lactose Farms.

However, they eventually convince Otto to come up with a very mission impossible plan to sneak into Lactose Farms and steal a milk truck. Doing so requires get past all sort of booby traps and very scary situations. Much of this is reminiscent of CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET.

At any event, Jinx wants Victor to be captured. So, she calls the security office at Lactose Farms, but all they hear is “Meow, meow, meow” until Mabel the head security officer who looks like the evil women in CHICKEN RUN uses her iPhone’s cat translation program. So, now she understands there’s a heist. So, it’s a race against time for all these characters to either get caught or meet Jinx’s demands.

Meanwhile, Garfield is still angry at his father until his father explains why they got separated.

The best part of THE GARFIELD MOVIE is the father and son relationship. At the end, it is deeply emotive and brings tears. There are also some very funny moments. Sadly, some of the scary moments are a little too intense, although there’s nothing bloody and certainly nothing sexual. Those who remember the original Garfield movies and TV programs may be put off by the fact that Garfield isn’t the same gluttonous, manipulative cat of the original programs where the humor comes from Garfield’s attitudes, not from his actions. This movie is much more of a cartoon heist, action adventure movie with a strong sense of jeopardy. As such, however, it never gets boring, is compelling and contains a lot of emotional moments that are heartwarming.