
Before you know it, Max and Duke are on the road, hoping to prevent both animal control and several sewer-house flushed" pets who are organizing a revolution against the individuals, headed by the scene-stealing bunny named Snowball (a great, lively turn by Kevin Hart ).
Front-loading the bits that are best, ‘The Secret Life of Pets' begins by envisioning what the animals in a New York apartment block get up to when their owners close the door each day. Somewhere around the middle of The Secret Life of Pets, I started jotting down the titles of animated movies about creatures' lives that were secret. Nevertheless, rather than developing the emotional core in it and digging into this premise that was rich, we are given a series of madcap chases and getaways with too many characters that we never really get to know.
Like the Despicable Me" pictures, which put Illumination on the map (and spawned those furshlugginer Minions), The Secret Life of Pets" is decent animated entertainment, amusing while it continues but not especially memorable except as a catalog of compromises and missed opportunities.
There is certainly an implication in the movie's title that these kinds of things occur fairly frequently, although due to the range of the storyline and the chaos the pets wreak in New York City (things like shutting down part of the Brooklyn Bridge), that feels improbable.
I should have known what I was in for when Taylor Swift's Welcome to New York" began playing at the very beginning of the movie. The movements of the creature characters are spot on. A pup circling around before settling into his blanket; dogs deflected by butterflies and bouncing balls; a mouse being used by a cat as a plaything. While not reaching anything out of the dog park, the film manages to hold an entertainment amount that is consistent with its plethora of characters. Max narrates this story of the day that his owner got another dog, a big hairball called Duke ( Eric Stonestreet )—and the visual offset between miniature Max and giant Duke offers a Laurel & Hardy charm that I wish the film played with more. Plus, release date statements and get a fast update on the most recent film news.