Film review: The Secret Life of Pets is awash with some impressive humour
Illumination, the animation studio that brought us those ubiquitous yellow Minions, is back with a brand new computer-animated adventure.
The premise is intriguing: what do our furry and feathered friends get up to when we’re not at home? The wonderful trailer suggested that the answer is just about everything – from a poodle headbanging to death-metal music, to a pudgy pussycat emptying the contents of a fridge into her mouth. ( Secret Life of Pets Movie Streaming Online)
A lot of these sight gags arrive in the first five minutes of the film – but don’t worry, the filmmakers have not front-loaded the film with the best bits.
Max (voiced by comedian Louis C K) is a mutt who is faced with a grave problem when his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), brings home a new dog from the pound – the shaggy-looking Duke (Eric Stonestreet). The two pooches are soon at each other’s throats, vying for supremacy in a battle for pet privileges.
Co-directed by Chris Renaud (Despicable Me) and Yarrow Cheney, it doesn’t take long before Max and Duke are lost on the streets of Manhattan, facing off with bug-eyed alley cats, Animal Control inspectors and a sewer-dwelling group of embittered pets that were abandoned by their owners.
"It’s like a club," says their psychotic bunny leader, Snowball (Kevin Hart), "but with biting and scratching". Snowball’s crew represents the biggest danger to our canine duo, but the predators don’t stop there, as Max’s besotted canine neighbour Gidget (Jenny Slate) mounts a rescue operation that involves a hawk called Tiberius (Albert Brooks), who is torn between helping his friends and eating them.
The plot is guilty of including the obligatory high-speed pursuits that afflict most animations these days, but the script is still awash with some impressive surreal humour.
A pit-stop at a hot-dog factory is a delight – every bit as inventive as the "pink elephant" hallucinations in Disney’s classic Dumbo.
Yet what really provides The Secret Life of Pets with its heart are the acutely observed moments of animal behaviour – from dogs chasing balls with Pavlovian abandon to cats squeezing themselves into odd-shaped receptacles. It’s like a compilation of the best animal videos on YouTube.
The film may lack the tear-jerking emotional heights that the Pixar cartoons often reach, but by the time it gets to a concluding montage, you’ll want to go home and hug your own pampered pet. (Secret Life of Pets Online Movie)
The premise is intriguing: what do our furry and feathered friends get up to when we’re not at home? The wonderful trailer suggested that the answer is just about everything – from a poodle headbanging to death-metal music, to a pudgy pussycat emptying the contents of a fridge into her mouth. ( Secret Life of Pets Movie Streaming Online)
A lot of these sight gags arrive in the first five minutes of the film – but don’t worry, the filmmakers have not front-loaded the film with the best bits.
Max (voiced by comedian Louis C K) is a mutt who is faced with a grave problem when his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), brings home a new dog from the pound – the shaggy-looking Duke (Eric Stonestreet). The two pooches are soon at each other’s throats, vying for supremacy in a battle for pet privileges.
Co-directed by Chris Renaud (Despicable Me) and Yarrow Cheney, it doesn’t take long before Max and Duke are lost on the streets of Manhattan, facing off with bug-eyed alley cats, Animal Control inspectors and a sewer-dwelling group of embittered pets that were abandoned by their owners.
"It’s like a club," says their psychotic bunny leader, Snowball (Kevin Hart), "but with biting and scratching". Snowball’s crew represents the biggest danger to our canine duo, but the predators don’t stop there, as Max’s besotted canine neighbour Gidget (Jenny Slate) mounts a rescue operation that involves a hawk called Tiberius (Albert Brooks), who is torn between helping his friends and eating them.
The plot is guilty of including the obligatory high-speed pursuits that afflict most animations these days, but the script is still awash with some impressive surreal humour.
A pit-stop at a hot-dog factory is a delight – every bit as inventive as the "pink elephant" hallucinations in Disney’s classic Dumbo.
Yet what really provides The Secret Life of Pets with its heart are the acutely observed moments of animal behaviour – from dogs chasing balls with Pavlovian abandon to cats squeezing themselves into odd-shaped receptacles. It’s like a compilation of the best animal videos on YouTube.
The film may lack the tear-jerking emotional heights that the Pixar cartoons often reach, but by the time it gets to a concluding montage, you’ll want to go home and hug your own pampered pet. (Secret Life of Pets Online Movie)
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