The Secret Life of Pets [Review by Haus]

Remember when animated films were actually for kids? When the colorful characters and pratfalls weren’t just window dressing to distract the single-digit tykes while adult-friendly themes play out amid much thirtysomething chin-stroking?

Zootopia (fantastic film, by the way) is a good example of today’s trend — a nuanced and wholly adult-themed story in child-friendly fable garb. For kids’ movies, surreptitious encroachment by the social justice intelligentsia is very much in vogue.  And keeping dad awake in juvie pictures is fine, but at some point, we call uncle: The minivan is covered in Goldfish. The popcorn-crunching breeding public is weary, is tired, and can bear only so much. They do not wish to think.

Enter The Secret Life of Pets. Here’s an old-fashioned animated film that offers awfully little to adults, which in today’s climate may actually be a good thing.

There’s not too much in the way of story. Max (Louis C.K.), a cheery and generic looking dog, loves his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) and his simple life — until she brings home a giant interloper rescue, Duke (Eric Stonestreet). The two tussle while being chummy with neighboring pets: white Pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate), aloof cat Chloe (Lake Bell), dachshund Buddy (Hannibal Buress), and bulldog Mel (Bobby Moynihan). (There are more.)

The trailer-bait premise — look what pets get up to when we’re out! — occupies about five minutes of screen time, quickly replaced with a strange fish-out-of-water adventure tale. As Max and Duke are thrust into an underworld of evil bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart) and his death-to-owners troupe of “flushed pets,” they must navigate a series of obstacles to find their way home. Gidget and company team up with a wheeled basset (Dana Carvey) and a hungry hawk (Albert Brooks, sounding very much like Al Pacino at times) to find their pals.

It’s pretty flat, until you realize that’s just how it’s going to be, and then it becomes enjoyably flat.

Story aside, there are plenty of high points, and kids will love it. This movie has awesome voice acting, solid sight gags, harmless one-liners, fluffy characters, and truly beautiful animation. (No, seriously; this might not be the ideal showcase, but the water rendering — traditionally a sore spot for CGI — has gotten so good it’s surreal. The gleaming hardwood floors in one apartment looked photorealistic. It’s nuts. And tacking back for a moment, is it wrong to dig Jenny Slate’s creaky vocal fry? No it is not.) The Secret Life of Pets also faithfully captures the aww-shucks love between pets and their owners. It’s not deep, but it’s good.

All this, with no serious thematic content to take the jam out of your donut.

Because we have the news for that.

Haus Verdict: Talking dogs and cats crack wise, knock stuff over, and go adventuring. Here’s a film for kids that’s good for exactly that reason. 

The Secret Life of Pets opens this weekend.

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4 thoughts on “The Secret Life of Pets [Review by Haus]

  1. I haven’t seen the movie so Dont take what I say extremely seriously but I love that kids movies feature adult content in the background makes it enjoyable for everyone. I see what you’re saying but I’ve never heard a child complain about adult subtext in kids movies. If the movie does its job right the kids won’t even notice it. There will still be bright colors and goofy characters. Not saying not having the adult stuff is bad just Dont think its a particularly great thing either.

    1. Oh, I agree. But there’s a simple pleasure to be derived from dropping all that and just seeing a film that’s unabashedly for kids. Nice podcast site, by the way.

  2. What I love about this movie is that the voice actors are not your typical bunch. Louis?? Buress? The re-emergence of Dana freakin’ Carvey? I love that the filmmakers have taken from the A-list of the alt-comedy realm and then thrown a bone to the masses with Kevin Hart. I’m saddened, though, that the story doesn’t seem to live up to the quality of said cast.

    Wonder if it would have been more interesting if the pets went out to a woodsy vacation with their children, one animal suspected his spouse was cheating, and all of them come down with a case of the vomits.

    Finally, DON’T EVER COME CLOSE TO SLANDERING MS. SLATE AND HER VOICE. Have you ever watched “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”? She’s magnificent in erry way.

    1. I couldn’t even tell who most of them were until the credits — Carvey has quite the interesting affect here. And how could you think I am slandering? It’s catnip!

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