Garfield is that rare creation - a cartoon cat that actually displays the characteristics of a real one - he's sly, greedy and supremely selfish.

Thankfully the moggy's leap from the page to the big screen hasn't seen the tubby ginger tom's vices turned to virtues.

In his comfortable kingdom of milk and lasagne, he rules the life of owner Jon (Meyer), a suspect loner with a worrying attraction to model trains.

The long hours of Garfield's day are spent dodging exercise and joining fellow feline Nermal in dreaming up ways to make sure they are the cats that literally get the cream.

However, his nemesis arrives when Jon is persuaded by attractive vet Liz Wilson (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to get a dog, Odie.

With the arrival of the mutt, the lazy, carefree days enjoyed by the former favourite are replaced in a power struggle for attention and food - a battle for pet primacy.

Odie soon becomes Garfield's whipping boy and is routinely shoved off the sofa by the cantankerous cat.

However, it seems this is a dog who can learn new tricks and Odie compounds his popularity with the humans by winning at a dog show. Garfield's not happy.

But when Odie runs away and is dognapped by slimy TV presenter Happy Chapman (Stephen Toblovsky) for his show in New York, the cat if forced to change its cynical stripes.

Bill Murray's laconic, world-weary delivery is perfect for Garfield's deadpan dialogue and the computer-generated cat rarely puts a paw wrong.

Aimed four square at the anklebiter audience, Garfield succeeds as a kids' caper even if efforts to pitch it at an adult audience aren't quite so successful.

Puff-fectly acceptable. This is one cat that's got the screen.

James Trueman.