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The Secret Life of Pets
STARRING: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan
DIRECTORs: Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney
Genre: Animation
Rating: PG
90 mins
Usually when it comes to deciding what film I’m going to watch in a given week, unless there’s an obvious blockbuster major release, I’ll spend some time watching previews and trailers to decide.
This week, though, the decision was made for me by my colleague Mai, who told me she could only sit through 10 minutes of The Secret Life of Pets before having one of her funny emotional turns and leaving in tears.
Luckily, she’s just embarked on holiday for a few weeks, so hopefully she never sees this and I avoid being bashed on the head by a rolled-up newspaper.
Anyway, as a fellow dog owner, I wanted to see for myself what damage the movie could do to my tear ducts. As it turns out (unsurprisingly), it was none at all, but it’s still watchable even if it is aimed squarely at kids.
Secret Life of Pets is the story of a terrier mix named Max (Louis C.K.), his friends, and the sorts of trouble they find.
On this particular occasion, Max is dealing with his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), having picked up a new dog, a rescue named Duke (Eric Stonestreet). Not only does Max not want to share Katie and his home, Duke is unsure about sharing as well. Duke, who definitely has a size advantage, would be perfectly happy to see Max disappear.
It is, quite clearly, a mutual dislike, one which is acted upon and balloons until both animals find themselves on the run from the dog catchers and a crazed rabbit named Snowball (Kevin Hart).
Snowball is the unlikely leader of a large animal resistance, the Flushed Pets, a group that wants revenge on all of humanity and which doesn’t mind getting rid of domesticated animals either. Unquestionably, it is a weird, outlandish tale and as the film goes on it only becomes more so.
As numerous animals are represented, the film regularly riffs on our expectations of animal behaviour, sometimes subverting them (in one of the best scenes, a poodle listens to metal) and sometimes playing into them (cats are aloof, dogs crave companionship). Whichever way the film chooses to go at any given moment, it regularly leads to something amusing.
Sadly, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that this film could have been something greater. It’s a little underwhelming, particularly in the writing where there was scope to take a few jokes further. With the ‘pets at home alone’ vibe, there were opportunities for giant laughs to be had, but instead there was just a gentle trickle of chuckles.
Recently watching Finding Dory also skewed my expectations for this movie. As they always do, Pixar struck a great balance between child and adult themes, whereas Pets, I felt, was definitely geared more towards children. That’s not a bad thing - of course it’s a kid’s movie first - but it was hard for me to really get invested in it the way I was intrigued during movies like Finding Dory and Toy Story.
In fact, I mention the latter because this at times feels like a bit of a rip-off. Swap toys for pets and you have a very similar concept – when the owner is away, it’s time for play. Unfortunately for this film, Toy Story and its sequels are some of the best movies of all time, so the sights of emulation should have been set a little lower.
Of the performances, Hart steals the show. He is brilliant as Snowball, offering up a relentless pace of jokes and quips. The notion of a cute little white bunny as the leader of an animal resistance out to vanquish humans is moderately comical by itself, but Hart sells it in a way that could have a human audience wondering if things might be better were Snowball to succeed.
Ultimately, The Secret Life of Pets is an above-average children’s movie with crisp visuals, fun characters and some decent lines, but adults will leave thinking it could have been a whole lot more.
Showing at: Novo Cinemas, Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Dana Cineplex
Rating: 3/5
