There are two main ways to use the word 'unbelievable'; positively and negatively. You might state, "This is unbelievable" upon first seeing the pyramids, but you might use the exact same phrase upon discovering paw prints on the inside of a ravaged refrigerator. Of these two categories, exclamations following a view of Garfield: The Movie would fall into the second category; the film adaptation of Jim Davis's popular comic strip is absolutely awful, and in no way justifies a release on the PSP.

To sum up: Garfield is a fat, lazy, arrogant, orange cat, Jon is his pathetic loser of an owner and Odie is a drooling dog, the subject of an unknown number of slapstick jokes. All this is copied directly from the comics. However, in this version, Odie invades the quiet untroubled life that Garfield is leading when Jon agrees to adopt him from Garfield's vet Liz, who he has a crush on. As always, Garfield warms up to the mindless excuse for a dog, although he completely denies it, so when Odie is kidnapped by a villainous television host with the idiotic name Happy, our feline anti-hero sets out to rescue him.

Our arrogant yet loveable star has followed in the footsteps of Gollum to be created using CGI. But what worked fine in the mischievous little former-hobbit's case has not worked here at all, to such an extent that it ruins most of the picture - those few moments that weren't bad in the first place, of course. And it isn't just the bad animation on the actual cat - the interaction between CGI and shots is just awful as well, mainly because it's non-existent. For example, Garfield steps on Jon's mattress in the first scene, yet leaves no marks. And not only does the new Garfield not work, but he bears very little resemblance to the original cartoon character that many have come to know and enjoy.

In terms of acting, the film varies quite a lot, from the occasional average performance to the really bad. Bill Murray is the only actual ray of sunlight; as always, he manages to deliver a believable performance. However, the character and the script limits the performance, so all the actors might have done better if they'd been given decent roles to work with. As it is, they might have just been depressed by the screenplay, I suppose.

The folks at Twentieth Century Fox have, despite the quality of the movie, decided to release it on UMD with all the honour it deserves. And since it deserves very little, that is what it gets. There are no extras, no subtitles and no additional audio tracks, which can be the norm for UMDs, but with the movie coming in at 80 mins there's really no excuse not to include some extras. Considering that the very same company recently released There's Something About Mary on the same format, which actually had a special feature, as well as multiple languages, Garfield is a huge disappointment. And why they decided to ditch extra features in favour of an anti-piracy ad, when they already had a written warning, is utterly inexplicable.

Despite the hype and popularity of the comic strip the film is based on, the creators of Garfield: The Movie decided to create a pile of dung instead of the classic it should have been. And I can't even say that a lack of potential is to blame, because the movie at no point had any, beyond the license itself. A movie starring a badly animated cat with a mediocre story, populated by second-rate actors is not worthy of even its initial release, much less its release on PSP. It might as well have been released on VHS for all the special features it holds, and when the standard has long ago been set, diving beneath it is a sure fire way of spoiling a movie. So my advice to everybody is this: hide every copy of this movie at the back of the shelves and dig a bomb shelter for when the sequel arrives this autumn.

Reviewed by Niels Jakob Kyhl Jørgensen for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).