Review – The Secret Life of Pets
The Secret Life of Pets just shows how brilliant Pixar is. No, Pixar did not make the film. Illumination Entertainment, the company behind the Despicable Me series, did, and you can tell they don’t have the same think tank Pixar has. This isn’t to say The Secret Life of Pets is a bad movie, because it’s not. But, after a great marketing campaign and a solid voice cast behind the film, the movie is cute and sometimes funny, but gets pretty ridiculous and stupid at the end.
Max (Louis C.K.), a terrier living in New York with his owner Kate, invites the fellow pets in his building to hangout with him while all their owners are gone for the day. When Kate brings home a new dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet), tensions rise in the apartment, as Max and Duke do not like each other. One day, while on a walk, Max and Duke get separated from their dog walker and begin a wild adventure through New York City, where they encounter a slew of other pets while also forming a bond with one another.
Along with C.K. and Stonestreet, the voice cast is pretty great. Comedian Hannibal Buress voices the wiener dog Buddy, SNL star Bobby Moynihan plays the spastic bulldog Max, Lake Bell is excellent as the extremely overweight cat Chloe, and Albert Brooks voices a very hungry, but sweet falcon, Tiberius. My two favorite voices and characters in the film were from Gidget, voiced by Jenny Slate, and Snowball, voiced by Kevin Hart. Gidget, who is madly in love with Max, is a prissy little fur ball who lives a pretty luxurious life in her apartment. But, when her man goes missing, she will do anything to get him back, including threatening and fighting every animal in her way. Slate is really wonderful here. Hart makes Snowball his own. This former magician assistant who was left on the street when the magician went for a new career, is the leader of a gang called the Flushed Pets (pets who were abandoned by their owners). Hart has the best lines in the whole movie and made me laugh every time he spoke. This is the best work Kevin Hart has done in a long time.
The movie itself though isn’t as creative or fun as I wanted it to be. This is definitely a movie for kids and, since technically I am an adult, some of the humor and plot points missed the mark for me, especially the last third. There wasn’t a lot of emotion in the film, which is what was desperately needed. It tried, but the “moment” of emotion didn’t stick, which is something even the most kid-friendly Pixar movies always have.
Also, the title is kind of misleading. This isn’t necessarily a secret life for these pets, it’s just one day where things get a little weird. It would have been a better movie if it played out like New York Stories (1989) and broke the movie into four or five twenty minute segments showing what each animal did while their owners were gone for the day. The stories could have been interwind, but it would have made more sense for the title.
The Secret Life of Pets is a great movie for kids and a decent one for adults. So parents, if you’re looking for something to keep the kids happy that gives you a chuckle every once in awhile, this is the movie for that.
MY RATING – 2.5/4
Did you see The Secret Life of Pets? What did you think? Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or on Facebook at Kevflix.