The Secret Life Of Pets
Rating: G
Director: Yarrow Cheney, Chris Renaud
Cast: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart
Distributor: Universal
Released: September 8
Running Time: 91 minutes
Reviewed by: Erin Free
The world appropriately looked on in wonder when it was revealed what our toys were doing when we weren’t looking in Toy Story and its sequels, so why not repeat the formula with our pets? Thankfully, The Secret Life Of Pets isn’t nearly as soulless and mercenary as that sentence might suggest, but it also doesn’t come within a cat’s whisker of even getting close to the brilliance of Pixar’s keystone franchise. Like its Illumination Studios stablemate, Minions, The Secret Life Of Pets is designed as a lots-of-noise-and-action thigh-slapper for the kids, with a few nods to the grown-ups accompanying them, rather than a bundle of adult-friendly riches.
The film focuses on Max (voiced by Louis C.K), a dog who loves his owner with a rare brand of loyalty and affection. But when he gets a new roommate in the big, shaggy, bullying form of Duke (Eric Stonestreet), Max’s enjoyably insular world is turned inside out and upside down. As the two not-exactly-alpha dogs’ rivalry slowly, surely evolves into friendship, the two pooches mix it up with all of the other pets (a winning, colourful collection of cats, dogs, fish, birds, and everything in between, voiced by big talent like Lake Bell, Jenny Slate, Albert Brooks and Ellie Kemper) that live in their (where’s the strata committee?) apartment building. Circumstances then conspire to let Max and Duke loose into the big, bad world, where they go paw-to-paw with a ragged, ramshackle community of stray, near-feral abandoned pets (led by the wonderfully demented bunny, Snowball, voiced with furious, hilarious abandon by Kevin Hart) who bear a collective grudge against the humans that have flushed (yes, there are alligators) and brushed them.
While The Secret Life Of Pets has stacks of fun with its pets-on-the-loose premise, it resolutely refuses to go any deeper. Opportunities for pathos and emotion are introduced and then loudly dropped in favour of more action and comedy, leaving the heavy subtextual lifting to Snowball and his crew of furry, feathered, scaly reprobates. These gloriously messed up critters provide the film with its most effective point of difference. They’re deranged, weird, funny, and frightening (but with a sad, affecting backstory), and prove that, in this case, the best cinematic pets aren’t house-trained. Hopefully, they bark and roar so loud that Illumination Studios throws them a bone in the form of their own spin-off movie.
This review comes via our good friends at Australia’s best movie site Film Ink. You can check them out here: www.filmink.com.au
