It isn't as if the makers of Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties, the sequel to 2004's unlikely hit, Garfield, don't give it the old sophomore – and sophomoric – try. First, the name is clever. It refers to Dickens, see. And writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (who also conspired on the first Garfield flick) cram the movie's mercifully short running time (even if it doesn't always feel like it) with the bathroom humor and pop culture references now de rigueur for kid-friendly movies.

Even so, A Tale of Two Kitties is more likely to dredge up furballs than a single belly laugh.

Bill Murray revisits his phone-in work from the first Garfield, providing the voice of the corpulent computer-generated kitty with a weakness for lasagna and TV. This time around, the feckless feline learns he has a lookalike in merry old England, an aristocratic cat named Prince (voiced by Tim Curry), who has just inherited the sprawling country estate of his late owner, Lady Carlyle.

The cats' paws cross when Garfield goes to London with his milquetoast owner, John (Breckin Meyer), who has come to the UK to track down and propose to his veterinarian girlfriend, Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt). As fate would have it, Liz is slated to give a lecture at a conference being held at the Carlyle castle. In one of those kooky coincidences, Garfield turns up around the same time that Lady Carlyle's villainous nephew, Lord Dargis (Billy Connolly playing John Cleese playing Lord Dargis), has tossed Prince in the Thames in hopes of taking over the estate.

In a riff on "The Prince and the Pauper," Prince ends up with John and John's nonspeaking (and unanimated) dog, Odie. Meanwhile, Garfield is mistaken for Prince and returned to the Carlyle estate. There he is warily embraced by a ho-hum group of talking live-action animals who prop up Garfield as the still-missing Prince, thereby trying to foil Dargis' power play.

Got all that? The overplotted silliness doesn't rescue A Tale of Two Kitties from the litter box. Garfield shakes his rump, farts and frolics in a bidet. Odie takes a leak on a Buckingham Palace guard. A vicious rottweiler shreds Billy Connolly's crotch into shepherd's pie. Kids might love it (OK, chances are they won't get the bidet joke), but, then again, you might not love them loving it.

If such high jinks don't tickle your funnybone -- and if they don't, steel yourself for an interminable 80 minutes -- the movie further lards on dusty and obvious pop-culture references in which their mere recognition (Silence of the Lambs, "Cat Scratch Fever") is supposed to elicit guffaws. For a movie about a cat, this is one big howler.

Viewers can select either a full-frame 1.33:1, which features the version that played in theaters, or a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen that boasts extended footage (the additions are nominal). The picture quality is very good, if not spectacular. There are a few spots in which the image appears soft and too dark.

The English track is in Dolby Digital 5.1, with Spanish and French tracks available in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround. Spanish subtitles are available, as well. The 5.1 is crisp and clear, but is not particularly inventive use of the technology.

Young 'uns will probably get a kick out of three brief Drawing with Jim Davis featurettes, in which the creator of the long-running comic strip shows us how to draw Garfield (2:52), Odie (1:59) and Pooky (2:17).

Also included is a music video of "Come and Get It" by Brian Anthony, an "exclusive" Garfield comic strip (reading a single comic strip on a TV set leaves something to be desired) and two interactive games that might have some appeal for children: Odie's Photo Album Game and Garfield's Maze Game.

Don't expect to bust a (cat)gut laughing. To make this tripe funny, you're going to need catnip -- and a lot of it.