Honestly, looking back at 2006, it’s hard to fathom how we ended up with a movie where a CGI cat from suburban America accidentally inherits a British castle. That’s the premise of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, a film that feels like a fever dream viewed through a mid-aughts lens. It’s a sequel that doubled down on the "fish out of water" trope while simultaneously trying to be a loose adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. You’ve got Bill Murray—who famously only took the first role because he thought the screenwriter Joel Cohen was actually Joel Coen of the Coen Brothers—returning to voice the lasagna-loving tabby.
It's weird. It’s chaotic. Yet, it remains a strange staple of childhood nostalgia for a specific generation.
The Plot Nobody Asked for (But We Got Anyway)
The movie basically kicks off with Jon Arbuckle, played by Breckin Meyer, traveling to London to propose to Liz Wilson, the veterinarian played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Naturally, Garfield and Odie stow away because Garfield can’t handle the idea of Jon being out of his sight, or more likely, he just wants to see what the food is like across the pond.
Through a series of truly improbable events, Garfield gets swapped with Prince XII. Prince is a royal cat who looks exactly like Garfield, voiced by the legendary Tim Curry. While Garfield is living it up in Carlyle Castle, Prince is stuck eating dry kibble and dealing with Jon’s awkwardness. It’s the classic identity-swap formula, but with more hairballs and British aristocracy jokes.
People often forget how much of a departure this was from the Jim Davis comic strips. The comics are static, cynical, and domestic. The movie, directed by Tim Hill, is an international heist-adventure-comedy. It’s loud. It’s energetic. It features Billy Connolly as the villainous Lord Dargis, who wants to get rid of the cat so he can turn the estate into a resort. Connolly is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, bringing a level of Shakespearean menace to a movie where he spends half his time being outsmarted by a CGI feline.
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Why the Animation Still Looks... Like That
If you watch Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties today, the first thing you notice is the lighting. The CGI Garfield has this weird, fuzzy glow that never quite matches the live-action environments. It’s a product of its time. In 2006, integrating high-detail fur into real-world lighting was still a massive technical hurdle.
The animation team at Rhythm & Hues—the same studio that would later win an Oscar for Life of Pi—had to make Garfield expressive enough to carry the movie while staying somewhat true to the "lazy eyes" of the comic. The result is a character that feels detached from the ground he walks on. But oddly, that adds to the surrealism. You aren't watching a real cat; you're watching a digital avatar of 21st-century consumerism wreak havoc on a 12th-century castle.
The Voice Casting Magic
Bill Murray’s performance is legendary for its sheer apathy. He sounds like he’s recording his lines while lying on a couch, which, to be fair, is exactly how Garfield should sound. But contrasting that with Tim Curry’s regal, over-the-top delivery as Prince is where the movie actually finds its rhythm.
Curry brings a theatricality that makes the "Tail of Two Kitties" subtitle feel earned.
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- The Animals: You have a whole supporting cast of barnyard animals voiced by British heavyweights like Bob Hoskins, Richard E. Grant, and Vinnie Jones.
- The Tone: It shifts from slapstick comedy to a weirdly high-stakes plot about property inheritance and animal rights.
- The Setting: London in the mid-2000s, complete with the obligatory shots of Big Ben and red double-decker buses.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Sequel
Critics absolutely hammered this film when it came out. It sits at a dismal 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t made for film critics. It was made for kids who thought the idea of a cat falling into a giant lasagna pan was the height of comedy.
There’s a common misconception that the movie was a massive flop. It actually pulled in over $140 million worldwide against a $60 million budget. It found its audience in international markets and on DVD shelves. People liked the simplicity. They liked the physical comedy. And honestly, they liked seeing Billy Connolly get bit by a dog.
We often look at these movies and demand "Pixar-level" depth. But Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties doesn't want to make you cry or think about the nature of existence. It wants to show you a cat trying to learn how to walk like a royal. It’s a farce. A silly, orange, pasta-fueled farce.
The Production Reality
The filming took place at various locations, including Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, which served as the fictional Carlyle Castle. Using a real, historic location gave the movie a sense of scale that helped ground the ridiculousness of the CGI. When you see Lord Dargis chasing animals through those massive halls, the stakes feel a bit more real because the environment is tangible.
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The production had to deal with the logistical nightmare of working with a dozen different animal species. While Garfield was digital, many of the other animals were real, trained performers. This created a strange visual disconnect where you have a photorealistic dog standing next to a slightly-too-bright orange cat. It’s a jarring aesthetic that defines mid-2000s family cinema.
A Soundtrack of Its Time
You can’t talk about this movie without mentioning the music. It features "Come and Get It" by Tim Deluxe and "SexyBack" by Justin Timberlake was hitting the charts around the same time this was in theaters. The movie uses these upbeat, pop-inflected tracks to keep the energy high. It’s a time capsule of a specific era of pop culture where every kids' movie needed a dance sequence or a high-energy montage.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Viewer
If you’re planning to revisit this film or introduce it to a younger generation, there are a few things to keep in mind to actually enjoy the experience:
- Lower Your Expectations for Physics: The CGI Garfield ignores gravity and lighting cues. Just accept him as a cartoon ghost living in a human world.
- Watch for the Supporting Cast: The voice work by Richard E. Grant and Bob Hoskins is genuinely funny if you pay attention to the dialogue rather than just the slapstick.
- Contextualize the Era: Remember that this came out before the MCU, before the "Prestige Animation" boom, and in the heart of the live-action/CGI hybrid trend started by Alvin and the Chipmunks and Scooby-Doo.
- Embrace the Absurdity: The plot involves an animal rescue mission to save a cat from being replaced by a real estate developer. It’s high-stakes nonsense.
Ultimately, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties isn't a masterpiece of cinema. It’s a loud, colorful, and occasionally funny artifact from a time when we were still figuring out what to do with iconic comic characters on the big screen. It’s proof that as long as you have a recognizable character and a big enough lasagna, people will show up to watch.
To get the most out of a rewatch, look for the subtle differences in animation between the first film and this sequel; the fur tech actually improved significantly between 2004 and 2006. If you're a fan of the original Jim Davis strips, try to spot the small easter eggs hidden in the castle's decor—there are a few nods to the long history of the fat cat if you look close enough at the background props and portraits.