Review #1,120: 'The Secret Life of Pets' (2016)

The Secret Life of Pets, the latest cutesy, family-friendly slice of talking-animal animation from Illumination Entertainment, feels like it was written as a result of a producer stumbling upon the 'ninja cat' video from YouTube. The trailers promised a fresh spin on the usual cartoon animal antics, with the action focusing on what our mischievous but lovable pets got up to when we leave for work every morning, whether it be inviting their neighbourhood friends round for a party, raiding our fridges for chicken and cake, or using the whisk as a vibrating scratching post. It felt like we were going to get Toy Story with cats and dogs, but what we get is a 90 minute chase sequence bereft of originality and charm.

If you're not familiar with the company Illumination Entertainment, they're the ones infesting what feels like every advert, bill-board and internet video with their Minion characters, those yellow, bespectacled creatures from Despicable Me (2010) who inexplicably inspire laughter from many by simply making a noise, and inspiring children everywhere to demand their parents cough up money on merchandise. Life of Pets is so devoid of ideas that it would be more appropriate to label it an extended advertisement for a new toy range. The latest must-have toy is Max (voiced with an Average Joe twang by Louis C.K.), a Jack Russell terrier who loves his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper), but pines for her every day as she leaves him to sulk in the apartment they share.

Despite spending most of his day feeling lonely, Max is perfectly happy lapping up all the attention whenever she is home, and hooking up with his friends - fat cat Chloe (Lake Bell), pug Mel (Bobby Moynihan), dachshund Buddy (Hannibal Buress) and budgie Sweetpea - when she isn't. However, Max's idyllic lifestyle is thrown into disarray when Katie brings home a huge, shaggy rescued stray named Duke (Eric Stonestreet). A series of events unleash Max and Duke onto the busy streets of New York, where they must dodge vicious alley cats and the always-lurking pound in a bid to get home, but instead find themselves in a kind of terrorist cell for disgruntled former pets led by the maniacal rabbit Snowball (Kevin Hart). Max's disappearance alerts the smitten Pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) from across the street, who rounds up the gang for a rescue mission.

If you've seen the trailers then you've already seen the best parts of the movie, for when the attention remains on the domestic quirks of the many animals on show, there are laughs and fun to be had. By taking the action outside of the home for the majority of the running time, directors Yarrow Cheney and Chris Renaud lose the hook, and events quickly devolve into almost every other audience-friendly animation not made by Pixar or Disney you've recently seen. Worse still, is that the many set-pieces aren't funny, with too much reliance on prat-falls and Kevin Hart's high-pitched squealing to generate any laughs. It's all just noise and colour and no heart, with only Slate's husky-voiced spunkiness and Albert Brooks' slightly unsettling eagle Tiberius managing to inject any life into their characters. It does little but reinforce just how good Disney's Zootopia was, and remind us how Illumination's priorities lie with how much cash is lining its pocket.


Directed by: Yarrow Cheney, Chris Renaud
Voices: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Albert Brooks, Lake Bell
Country: USA/Japan

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie