The Secret Life of Pets
The secret is out, and it’s a fun imaginative story for everyone, not just the kids.
But that’s the way these movies are going these days, the Secret Life of Pets is design to get everyone to buy a ticket (especially those who own pets), but I do feel this movie is more catered to get adults in those seats. Of course you can bring your children, cause nothing in the movie is not for children, but the clean jokes are mostly focus to an older crowd (or a crowd of pet owners)
I hoping no child out their knows who Luis CK is, other than his own children. I think this is the first time the kids will hear the voice of Luis CK.
The opening monologue was very similar to something that Luis CK would talk about in his comedy routine (Just less grim and raunchy). As the character of Max, a small terrier he tells us what it’s like to be a pet, and from his perceptive it’s more like being roommates with your best friend, but in reality he’s more like a child who when the parents go away, he and the other children cause mischief when they are all unsupervised. Max’s life gets turned upside down when his owner brings home yet another dog named Duke (awesome name for a dog by the way). I understand how Max feels. I’m sure it does happen with dog lovers, but me personally, I’ve never known a person who already owned a dog in New York City to go out and get another dog three times the size of the tiny dog you have for your above average sized New York Apartment (that she gets to live in alone cause whenever she leaves to the place Max does not know and does not understand why she leaves, she must be making a lot of money from it (She does have a T-shirt from a college I could not read, but it must have been a good one). Two cats, Yes, but two dogs!?
Anyway, in both Max and Duke’s attempts to get rid of one another they end up getting captured by animal control and escape with the help of a psychopath bunny name Snowball who leads a rebellion of animals that were “flushed” away by their owners (Apart of the crew is two Crocodile who live in the sewer confirming the urban legend). This is where the adventure begins as Max and Duke go on adventure from Central Park to Brooklyn and back again in an attempt to find home and their friends from the apartment complex lead by Gidget, who has a huge crush on Max (but Max barely knows she’s alive) plan a rescue attempt when they find him missing.
The animation is just OK, nothing mind blowing about the character designs, but the back ground layouts were actually pretty cool to look at. The animation is used more so as a tool for what is an excellent story of adventure and odd friendships.
The pets where as unique in personality as any resident filled Manhattan apartment complex.
Louis CK was almost outshined by Kevin Hart as a tiny bunny called Snowball, a psychotic animal who was abandoned by his owner to become leader of a rebellion for abandon pets. Hart was at his funniest in this movie, Just so on point. Kevin Hart also had a starring role in the movie Central Intelligence this summer, and he was nowhere near as funny in that one as he was in this. If you are a fan of Hart’s, you better off watching him play a voice in this movie.
Another character I really liked (other than that poodle whose a huge fan of System of a Down) was Tiberius, a hawk trying to hold back his predator urge in order to help his new (and only) friend, Gidget find Max. It was kinda odd hearing Albert Brooks voice come out of the character. Not odd like his role in Drive, but odd in the fact that I just saw (herd) him in as Marlin in Finding Dory that came out a few weeks before.
The Secret Life of Pets has a lot of cool charters I should mention, but that’s a long list. However, I got to give a shout out to Chloe. If you are a cat lover ( I am) than you are going to love her, she is the absolute best.
The 3D was worth it. Items came popping out but not for no reason like most 3D movies. Basically, it feels like they planed the 3D from day one rather than adding it on afterwards to try to milk extra dollars out of us. Once again pointing out a great story happening in the movie, that does not need 3D as a gimmick for you to go out and see it.
Plus, like most animated blockbusters, you get a short at the beginning before the feature. This short stars the Minions in a funny tale of the crew trying to raise money to buy something needlessly sold to them on TV.
So, Yeah, if you have kids take them, If you don’t, It’s still a worth wild movie to checkout, but I think you’ll have to leave your pets at home (although after seeing this movie you might not want to)
