Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is a 2006 British-American live-action/computer-animated family comedy film directed by Tim Hill and written by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow. It is the sequel to the 2004 film Garfield: The Movie. The film stars Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Billy Connolly, Ian Abercrombie, Roger Rees, Lucy Davis, Oliver Muirhead, Bill Murray, Tim Curry, Bob Hoskins, Rhys Ifans, Vinnie Jones, Joe Pasquale, Richard E. Grant, Jane Leeves and Roscoe Lee Browne. This film was produced by Davis Entertainment Company for 20th Century Fox, and was released in United States on June 16, 2006. A video game, Garfield 2, was developed by The Game Factory. The film earned $141.7 million.

Plot
Jon Arbuckle plans to propose to his girlfriend Dr. Liz Wilson, who is going on a business trip to London. Jon follows her to the United Kingdom as a surprise; after escaping from the kennel, Garfield and Odie sneak into Jon's luggage and join him on the road trip. Garfield and Odie break out of the hotel room due to boredom, and subsequently get lost in the streets of London.

Meanwhile, at Carlyle Castle in the English countryside, the late Lady Eleanor Carlyle's will is read. She leaves all of Carlyle Castle to Prince XII, her beloved cat who is a twin counterpart of Garfield. This enrages the Lady's nephew, Lord Manfred Dargis, who will now only get an income of £50 a week and get the grand estate once Prince is out of the picture. Lord Dargis traps Prince in a picnic basket and throws him into the river.

Garfield inadvertently switches places with Prince: Jon finds Prince climbing out of a drain and takes him to the hotel after mistaking him for Garfield, while Prince's butler Smithee finds Garfield in the street and takes him to Carlyle Castle after mistaking him for Prince.

In the grand estate Garfield is residing in, he receives the royal treatment, including a butler and a team of four-legged servants and followers. Garfield teaches his animal friends how to make lasagna, while Prince learns to adapt to a more humble setting, while in Jon's company. Dargis sees Garfield and thinks Prince has come back – if the lawyers see Prince/Garfield they will not sign the estate over to Dargis, who secretly wants to destroy the barnyard and kill the animals to build a country spa. Dargis makes many attempts to kill Garfield, one involving a merciless but dim-witted Rottweiler named Rommel.

Eventually Garfield and Prince meet each other for the first time. Jon and Odie discover the mix-up and go to the castle, which coincidentally Liz is also visiting.

Garfield and Prince taunt Dargis, whose plan is exposed, and are seen by the lawyers. Dargis barges in, holding a blunderbuss and threatens everybody if they don't sign the papers giving him ownership of the estate, taking Liz hostage. Jon attempts to force Dargis to release Liz by holding a crossbow at him, only for Dargis to threaten to kill Jon for getting involved in the first place. Garfield and Prince, with the help of Odie and Jon, save the day while Smithee alerts the authorities and Dargis is arrested for his crimes. Garfield, who had been trying to stop Jon from proposing to Liz, has a change of heart: He helps Jon propose to Liz, and she accepts.

Live action actors

 * Breckin Meyer as Jon Arbuckle, the owner of Garfield and Odie
 * Jennifer Love Hewitt as Dr. Liz Wilson
 * Billy Connolly as Lord Manfred Dargis
 * Ian Abercrombie as Smithee the Butler
 * Roger Rees as Mr. Hobbs
 * Lucy Davis as Ms. Abby Westminister
 * Jane Carr as Mrs. Whitney
 * Oliver Muirhead as Mr. Greene

Voice cast

 * Bill Murray as Garfield
 * Tim Curry as Prince XII, an English cat who is a twin counterpart of Garfield
 * Bob Hoskins as Winston, an English bulldog who is Prince's servant.
 * Rhys Ifans as McBunny
 * Vinnie Jones as Rommel, a rottweiler who is Lord Dargis's companion.
 * Jim Piddock as Bolero
 * Joe Pasquale as Claudius
 * Greg Ellis as Nigel
 * Richard E. Grant as Preston
 * Jane Leeves as Eenie
 * Jane Horrocks as Meenie
 * Roscoe Lee Browne as the Narrator

Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 11% of 73 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 3.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Strictly for (very) little kids, A Tale of Two Kitties features skilled voice actors but a plot that holds little interest." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 37 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same grade earned by its predecessor.

Joe Leydon of Variety gave the film a positive review, saying "Good kitty! Superior in every way to its underwhelming predecessor, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is a genuinely clever kidpic that should delight moppets, please parents – and maybe tickle a few tweens." Janice Page of The Boston Globe gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "You'll only be attracted to Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties if you're very young, you're very easily entertained, or you just can't get enough of Jim Davis's lasagna-scarfing cartoon cat." Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is actually funnier and more charming than the first film." Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "Connolly, bless him, throws himself heartily into the task of acting opposite a computer-generated cat given to bad puns and flatulence. Everyone else, however, looks mortified, and can you blame them?" Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film one out of four stars, saying "The best thing that can be said about Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is that the movie isn't quite as bad as its name." Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the film a C, saying "Two Kitties marks a considerable improvement over its predecessor. It's faster paced and the filmmakers wisely shift the focus away from bland owner Breckin Meyer and onto a menagerie of chattering animals. After a dreadful first entry, Two Kitties elevates the Garfield series almost to the level of mediocrity." Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "It comes off like a coughed-up furball: a wan rehash with too many elements of the hard-to-swallow 2004 original."

Box office
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties grossed $28.4 million in North America, and $113.3 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $141.7 million. The film opened to number seven in its first weekend, grossing $7.3 million. According to 20th Century Fox, the studio was aware that the film would not make as much as the first, and only made it based on the worldwide success of the first film.

Home video
The film was released on DVD on October 10, 2006. The DVD includes a "Drawing with Jim Davis" featurette, teaching viewers how to draw Garfield, Odie and Pookie, and two games: Garfield's Maze, and Odie's Photo Album. It also includes a music video, trailers, featurettes, a new Garfield comic strip by creator Jim Davis, along with a making of the strip featurette and a widescreen-only extended cut with eight minutes of footage not seen in theaters. The theatrical cut of the film (78 minutes) is included on the DVD along with the extended version, which is 86 minutes long.

Awards
The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards in 2006, one in the category "Worst Prequel or Sequel", and one in the category "Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment", but lost to Basic Instinct 2 and RV, respectively.