Movie Review: 'The Secret Life of Pets'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Toy Story flicks gave us a glimpse into just what happens among children's toys when we humans are out of the room/house/picture.
And we dearly loved being let in on the secret life of toys.
A similar peek behind another curtain is being offered, this time into the world of domestic dogs and cats and birds, oh, my, in the animated comedy The Secret Life of Pets.
The Secret Life of Pets takes place over the course of a day in an apartment building in Manhattan, where a terrier named Max, voiced by Louis C.K., a cherished pet whose devotion to his owner and cushy daily routine are rudely interrupted when his owner brings home a huge stray named Duke, given voice by Eric Stonestreet (of the TV sitcom, Modern Family).
But what Max and Duke discover together one day, while on a walk and unable to get home, is that a little bunny named Snowball, a former magician's rabbit voiced by Kevin Hart, is putting together an army of abandoned animals, calling themselves the Flushed Pets, as part of their determination to gain revenge against all just-happy-to-be-owned pets and their privileged owners by un-domesticating all the owned animals.
Co-directors Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney, who collaborated previously on Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2 and The Lorax, keep the pace lively but let their characters hit the road a bit too soon, so that we haven't gotten much of a look at their normal everyday environment, and they haven't fully explored its comedic possibilities.
The narrative could actually use more in the way of incident and subplot. As it is, the film sometimes seems like an inspired short sporting stretch marks as a result of being adapted willy-nilly to feature length.
The narrative starts off promisingly, but the screenwriters seem to run out of creative steam once the tired caper plot and the overly familiar and generic action elements kick in.
That said, however, there's nonetheless plenty of observational humor, peppy dialogue, and especially frenetic, Looney Tunes-recalling slapstick emerging from the script by Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch, and Cinco Paul.
And the view of an animated New York City through the eyes of pooches is a novel one.
The Secret Life of Pets doesn't have the ambition, complexity, or originality of, say, Zootopia, but it still generates plenty of laughs, especially in the early going.
Ironically, while it's stimulating to confront as many characters as are included along the way, the film may be too crowded, too populated, to do justice to its central story or essential charm.
Regardless, the makers of The Secret Life of Pets should be particularly grateful to the existence of the Toy Story movies for the blueprint they provided for this virtual spinoff, which also features in its supporting ensemble the voices of Albert Brooks as a hawk, Jenny Slate as a Pomeranian, Lake Bell as a cat, Steve Coogan as an alley cat, Dana Carvey as a basset hound, Bobby Moynihan as a dog, and Ellie Kemper as Max's owner.
So let's housebreak 2-1/2 stars out of 4. While puppy love doesn't quite kick in, The Secret Life of Pets still has both heart and energy, and is at the very least doggedly good-natured about unleashing jokes.
Yes, it does for animals what its classic predecessor did for playthings. Just not as well.
