Since his inception in June of 1978, Garfield, the lasagna-loving lazy feline from the newspaper’s comic strip of the same name has become a household name. Incredibly popular in the 1980’s, the cat spawned a revolution of suction-cupped window-adornments as well as a weekly cartoon series on CBS where the lovable cat was purr-fectly voiced by the late Lorenzo Music. The cast of characters including Garfield’s human owner Jon Arbuckle, the air-headed pooch Odie, the romantic Arlene, and the sneaky-kitten Nermal were all drawn in the same fashion as the 3-panel comic strip with little-to-no backgrounds and the characters dialogue and interaction stealing the show.

Fast forward to 2004: “Garfield: The Movie” takes the logical next step onto the big screen, but not just any step. The movie attempts to infuse a computer-generated Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) with live-actors, but unfortunately this idea must have been hatched on a Monday, Garfield’s least-favorite day of the week.

As far as the story goes, it’s a generic-enough plot to introduce the feline to the movie franchise.

Garfield lives with his owner Jon (Breckin Meyer) and enjoys his existence as the most spoiled fat cat around. Jon’s excellent care and love of Garfield leads veterinarian Elizabeth (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to believe that he would be the perfect owner for Odie, a dog in her kennel. Since Jon has had a crush on Liz since High School, he agrees to take the pooch home, and of course this doesn’t sit well with Garfield.

So far, the story coincides with the comic strip. However, for the film, this is where we add “Hollywood.”

When Garfield gets jealous of Jon’s affection for Odie and locks him out of the house one night, Odie, being the “dumb-dog” that he is, runs away and is kidnapped by the not-so-nice Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky). Happy is a local television personality, whose cat show is popular, but the big New York network is looking for a dog show. He needs a charismatic dog, and Odie fits the bill.

Garfield to the rescue!

As far as the film goes, it is on par to aim for the same audience as last year’s “Good Boy!” or “Cats & Dogs.” Talking animals, not-too-villainous bad guys, and hollow humans is accessible fare for seven to ten-year olds. The plot and story are easy to follow, if not silly, but that’s ok, since it’s clearly not aimed at the adult crowd. For kids, silly is good. As my 8-year old daughter stated, it’s “awesomely funny.”

This is all due in part to the snarky voice-over by Bill Murray as Garfield. Where the film fails (in more ways than one), Murray makes up for it with snappy wit and above average one-liners that will keep kids laughing and adults smiling. The humor is not innuendo-laced a-la “Shrek,” but rather straight-forward and easily caught by children and kept at a minimum level.

The biggest problems with the film are twofold. First, the cardboard characters of Jon and Liz (Breckin and Love Hewitt) do nothing to help breathe any life into their former two-dimensional drawings that their characters are based on. Love Hewitt’s only job, it seems, is to smile and run around in skimpy dresses and high heels, while Breckin looks on and smiles dimly. Secondly, the incorporation of a fully CGI fat-cat and live action just never really meshes. Where “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” succeeded in having live-actors look like they were interacting with cartoons, “Garfield” never really seems to be “in” the scene. Instead, although the graphics for the orange cat are top-notch and detailed, the interaction with live animals whose mouths are made to look as though they’re “talking” just never gels.

Whereas the CGI Garfield encapsulates the feel of the original cartoon, the fact that Odie, Nermal, and Arlene are made into live animals kills the magic of the memory created by the strip. No strip ever succeeded by being about just one person or animal, but rather by those that the main character interacts with, and Garfield’s family, even though they are “live,” have no life. If not for Bill Murray, “Garfield: The Movie” would be an empty, forgettable kids movie. Thankfully, it’s tolerable family-fare, and apparently “awesomely funny.”