Another lovable character franchise, another restaurant sponsoring a meal featuring that character.
I recently went to watch The Garfield Movie (2024) in theaters and also enjoy a lovely Italian meal at the nearby Olive Garden. This is not the first character meal that I went to explore, but I think the food here tasted better, but also I think Italian food can be tastier than breakfast food. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Recently, a friend and I went to see the new Garfield movie in theaters at AMC. I always like the movie theater experience, with fresh popcorn, and new movies to watch. This time was no different.
Obviously, I had to get the exclusive Garfield popcorn bucket and cup. The bucket is a really nice solid tin bucket with Garfield and Odie on the sides, and the cup had one of four different characters on top of it. My cup had a model of baby Garfield, who I now have sitting on the dash of my car.
The final item in the Garfield special was a plush version on either Garfield or Odie. Obviously I picked Garfield (pictured above). The brown tabby cat Bella was not included in the theater special so don’t ask your AMC concessions worker.
The Movie
The movie itself was… just okay.
The basic plot of the movie is a simple adventure. It starts off with a scene showing us how Garfield and his owner Jon met for the first time, at an Italian restaurant, after Garfield (Chris Pratt) was abandoned in an alley by his father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson).
About 5 years pass afterwards, and Garfield is content as a house cat. One night, he and Odie get kidnapped by a pet mafia as a revenge plot against his father Vic. Vic saves them, but the trio are forced to go and rob a milk farm for the lead cat, Jinx.
The rest of the film is the two cats bickering about their differences and learning to understand one another. I’d guess that probably half the plot is them trying to plan the milk heist, and then actually doing it takes 30ish minutes before the plan fails and they get captured.
I won’t spoil the rest of the ending, but I will say overall I think the characters were done well in the film. I think I liked it better than Scoob!, which to be was very disappointing as a Scooby Doo fan.
In the film Garfield is fat, lazy, and loves to eat, and this movie nailed that. I think the only disappointing thing in the movie is that despite the flashback at the beginning, there’s barely any Garfield and Jon interaction, which is the basis of the comic strip. I left wishing there was more of that.
There is also a huge amount of product placement in the film. Olive Garden is seen twice, and in a scene Garfield goes on the Walmart app on his phone and FedEx delivers a new chair for him to use. I was very surprised how much product placement there was, and despite showing the fridge 3 times in the film, the characters never went to or ate Olive Garden food.
I’m not sure what this product placement was for. Were there special things at Walmart for the Garfield movie? Does FedEx have an ad for the film? Who leaves a whole hot dog with mustard in a bun in the fridge?
Why did Jon leave the whole bag in the fridge instead of taking the containers out and just having those in the fridge? Is the Olive Garden bag in their fridge just propaganda to try and take people there to eat?
I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answers…
After the movie, we went to Olive Garden for lunch.
I did not try the Garfield appetizer: the Lasagna Fritta. The unlimited salad was enough for me, and I only ate half a bowl of it.
The lasagna was the main course. Look at the presentation and size of the plate. Garfield himself probably could’ve eaten three of these.
It was tasty, and no wonder they had a takeout bag in their fridge in the movie.
The other meal option for Garfield was the Tour of Italy meal. It had three different pastas including lasagna, but I thought it best to go all out on the lasagna this time.
Usually when I go to Olive Garden I only get the unlimited soup and salad because it tastes good, and I can eat as much as I want, but the lasagna did taste pretty good.
For dessert: Chocolate Lasagna.
Cats aren’t able to eat chocolate, but legally I’m not a cat so it was okay.
It tasted pretty good! I think it was like cake or brownie layered with chocolate mousse, and while it was a little harder at the bottom, it was a good dessert to finish the Garfield day.
Overall, it was a pretty good orange cat filled day. Chris Pratt wasn’t too bad as Garfield. He wasn’t amazing, but he could play a pretty good Italian. Still need to watch the Mario movie to see how he did there, but I’ve heard good things.
Hopefully there will be another character dinner to explore soon, but in the meantime go get some pasta.
Kristopher K. Online 