THE GARFIELD MOVIE

The film starts as Garfield (Chris Pratt) orders pizza using delivery drones before addressing the viewers to tell them about his backstory. As a kitten, Garfield was left alone by his father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) in an alley. He then walks across the street to an Italian restaurant, where he finds a young man, Jon Arbuckle (Nicholas Hoult), eating alone. Jon sees Garfield and sneaks him in through the window. He offers the cat a pepperoni from his pizza, but Garfield devours the entire pie in two seconds. He then proceeds to eat everything in sight around the restaurant during a birthday celebration, and Jon sneaks him out in a box of (what else) lasagna. Although Jon tries to leave Garfield, he realizes the cat has nowhere to go. And thus, Garfield declares this is when HE adopted Jon.

Jon moves into a bigger house to accommodate Garfield, and he later adopts Odie the dog (Harvey Guillen). Garfield enjoys swiping most of Jon’s food with help from Odie, who acts as his lookout. Garfield says that life for them is sweet (except, of course, for Mondays), but things would soon come crashing down.

Garfield and Odie get up in the middle of the night for a snack (meaning nearly half the fridge) before two dogs, Roland (Brett Goldstein) and Nolan (Bowen Yang), show up in the kitchen and swipe the two of them. Garfield and Odie wake up in an abandoned location tied upside down for hours before a cloaked figure shows up to break them free. Garfield soon recognizes the figure as Vic, and he is none too happy to see his father over the belief that Vic had abandoned him. Before Vic can get them out, they are found by Roland and Nolan’s boss, a sinister Persian cat named Jinx (Hannah Waddingham).

Jinx explains that she lured Vic there by kidnapping Garfield. In her backstory, she wanted to be a famous cat, but when she went to perform for a talent show, she got stage fright and lost. Later, Jinx met Vic and used to be part of his crew of cats that would steal and fend for themselves. They stole milk from a farm, but Jinx was caught and sent to the pound, even though Vic tried to go after her. Roland and Nolan helped break Jinx out, and now she wants Vic to steal back a quart of milk for every day that she was locked up (amounting to over 6000 quarts of milk), or else she will have the dogs tear them apart. To show she means business, she devours her henchbird that also helped abduct Garfield and Odie.

Despite Garfield not wanting anything to do with Vic, Roland and Nolan force him and Odie to help Vic pull off their heist. Vic has Garfield jump onto a moving train by launching him from a tree, causing Garfield to ricochet across several things (including, somehow, a parade float of himself) before landing in a pile of manure inside the train. Meanwhile, Jon finds that Garfield and Odie have gone missing, and he ends up staying on hold for a whole day while trying to get help.

The trio arrive at Lactose Farms for the heist, while Roland and Nolan keep eyes on them. While trying to find a way to sneak inside, Garfield and Vic see Otto the bull (Ving Rhames), one half of the mascot duo for the dairy farm alongside his beloved cow girlfriend Ethel (Alicia Grace Turrell). When Odie notices he looks sad upon seeing Ethel from a distance, Otto explains that he was separated from her because the company that bought the farm put him out to pasture. Vic then suggests that they can help reunite Otto with Ethel if he helps them get inside Lactose Farms for their heist.

Otto lays out an elaborate plan for the trio to get inside, but Garfield and Vic’s bickering causes them to keep messing up. It culminates in Otto tying them both up until they can work together to get themselves out. They keep using the vine around them to beat each other up until Garfield vents to Vic over being abandoned. Vic them tells Garfield the truth, which is that on that night, he went to go get Garfield food, but he had to wait until a restaurant employee would leave so Vic can grab food. When he got back, he saw Garfield in the restaurant with Jon and decided that Jon would provide more for him than Vic ever could. However, Vic states that he visited Garfield many times while sitting in an oak tree, watching him through the window of Jon’s house. After Garfield forgives Vic, Odie cuts them loose, and Otto decides that it would take 17 years for them to fully get ready, but since they have only 48 hours, he declares they are good now.

Roland and Nolan go back to Jinx to let her know that Garfield, Vic, and Odie are ready for the heist. Jinx then makes a phone call to an animal control station, where a highly obsessive and dedicated officer, Marge Malone (Cecily Strong), is able to translate Jinx’s meowing to human speech, where she tells the officers that a heist is happening at Lactose Farms. Marge wastes no time in heading out.

The trio sneak into the farm inside children’s backpacks before making their way through the air vents. They end up in a part of the factory called “The Acorn”, which Otto warned them to stay away from. Garfield ends up falling through The Acorn but lands on a giant block of cheddar. Unfortunately, the cheese is getting processed. Odie tries to save Garfield, but Vic eventually saves both of them from getting sliced up. Just as they manage to find the truck with all the milk, Marge finds them first and holds the keys. The three attempt to outsmart Marge, but Vic ends up with the keys and gets away with the truck, leaving Garfield and Odie to be taken by Marge to the pound. Garfield is once again crushed. Outside, Otto tries to get to Ethel, but Marge’s fellow officers chase him off with cattle prods.

At the pound, Garfield meets the other cats from Vic’s crew, including Olivia (Janelle James) and Snoop Catt (Snoop Dogg). They are also mad at Vic, believing that he abandoned them. However, Garfield realizes that they are talking about Vic going off to visit him at Jon’s house, where they state that he left a notch in the oak tree for every time he visited. Garfield thinks they were lied to, just as Jon shows up to pick up Garfield and Odie, since the pound contacted him using Odie’s tag, and Garfield didn’t even realize he has a tag in the folds of his neck.

Vic brings the milk truck to Jinx, but she then reveals that the milk was never what she wanted, but rather to make Vic suffer and get sent to the pound as payback. Now that Vic is there, Jinx decides she has other plans for him.

Garfield is delighted to be back home and prepares to gorge himself on an epic lasagna feast, but he sees the oak tree in the backyard. He walks over and climbs up, where he finds that Vic really did leaves hundreds of notches in the tree for every time he visited, and Garfield finally realizes that Vic really has always loved him. He then heads off with Odie to find Vic (to Jon’s dismay).

Garfield and Odie return to Jinx’s hideout where they find her board with her whole evil scheme, which reveals she is planning to throw Vic to his death from the train as it passes over a bridge. The two contact Otto and promise to fulfill their end of the bargain to get Ethel back, but they ask for his help in saving Vic first.

Otto catches up to the two and launches Garfield towards the train. With help from Odie, they summon a fleet of pizza drones to come in and help them against Roland and Nolan. Garfield rides flying pizza boxes and causes the dogs to injure themselves before he gets to Vic. As they come upon the bridge, Garfield pushes Vic off since Otto set up a net for them to land on, but it’s too tight and they both get bounced back into Roland and Nolan’s grasps, while Jinx gets ready to watch them both die. Garfield and Vic reconcile after all they have been through, which touches Roland and Nolan so much that they turn on Jinx. She responds by pushing all four of them off the train, but as she laughs, she gets knocked over too. Otto saves Garfield, Vic, Roland and Nolan, while Jinx gets caught in the net.

Garfield then makes good on his promise by organizing a trade with Marge. She gives them Ethel in exchange for a caged Jinx, whom Marge knows is responsible for the heist. Otto and Ethel have a romantic reunion.

Garfield, Vic, and Odie go back to Jon’s house, and Vic says goodbye to them. Garfield and Odie go back inside, but after taking some time to think about it, Garfield runs outside to find Vic in the oak tree and invites him to stay for dinner. The two then hug for the first time. Inside, Jon is not happy to find a bill for all the pizza drones Garfield used.

Later on, Vic keeps coming over for dinner until Jon eventually fully adopts him, while all of Jon’s friends and neighbors (and some of Garfield’s neighborhood cat friends) show up for Garfield’s birthday party. The movie ends as Jon hangs up a portrait of himself and his pets as one happy family.

After the credits, a classic Garfield comic strip appears, with him asking if people are still watching because they are waiting for a sequel.