Review: ‘Secret Lives of Pets’ pulls back the veil on what our animals are up to

Posted on July 15, 2016

By MARK VIOLA

I’m sure everyone with a pet or two has wondered just what they get up to while we’re not at home. Do they just sit at the door awaiting our return? Do they explore the house in ways we’d never expect? Or do they invite their friends over for an afternoon get-together?

Well, answering those questions is the basis of the new animated film, “The Secret Life of Pets,” from Illumination Entertainment, the studio which gave us the “Despicable Me” movies along with “Minions” and “The Lorax.”

This movie is a lot of fun, especially for pet owners, as it peels back the veil on the inventive ways our pets pass the time. It also boasts a strong voice cast led by Louis C.K. (“Louise”), Eric Stonestreet (“Modern Family”), Kevin Hart (“Central Intelligence”), Jenny Slate (“Saturday Night Live”) and Albert Brooks (“Finding Dory”).

Unfortunately the movie is not as good as it could have possibly been because it often feels like they took the easy route whenever it came to deciding how they were going to tell their story.

he movie follows a small dog named Max (Louis C.K.) living in an apartment building in New York City. His life really couldn’t be any better. His owner loves him and they have tons of fun together. When she leaves, Max entertains many of the building’s other pets in the apartment.

Then one day his owner brings home a new dog, Duke (“Stonestreet”), from the pound. Max does not like the much bigger Duke from the first moment he steps into the apartment, and the two are constantly antagonizing each other. This leads to a cold war as each dog works to eliminate his rival, until one attempt goes terribly wrong and they find themselves lost and alone in the city. As you might expect, Max and Duke are going to have to rely on each other if they’re ever going to find their home again, especially after they run afoul of a ragtag group of animals led by the rather psychotic rabbit Snowball (Hart).

Really my feelings on this movie are a tale of two trailers. The initial teaser focused on the idea of looking at this world behind the world inhabited by our pets. Much of what we see in that trailer is actually a trimmed-down version of the film’s opening few minutes, which set up this world. The second trailer lays out the story of Max, Duke and the rest as they go on this crazy adventure through New York City. And frankly, I was much more interested in the movie the first trailer was promoting than the second, because while the idea of delving into the secret world of pets opens mountains of possibilities, the story we end up getting, as shown in the second trailer, is a very tired and rather prediction option.

It is a pretty standard story. Two people who don’t get along for whatever reason find themselves alone in a situation in which they’re forced to rely on each other to make it out. You know going in how this story is going to end, especially we pretty much saw the exact same thing in “Toy Story.”

My complaints aside, “The Secret World of Pets” is an entertaining movie. Younger audiences will find plenty to enjoy and its very lean runtime–87 minutes–will ensure that older audiences won’t get bored before the end.

The movie is a lot of fun, especially for pet owners, but it does feel like it could have been a much better movie with a more original story.

The film is rated PG for action and some rude humor.

(This is a abbreviated version of the full review available in our printed or e-edition papers.)

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