The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Review)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a Pointless but Fun Sequel to a Pointless but Fun Movie.
If I’m being honest, I’m definitely not the target audience for a movie like The Secret Life of Pets 2. I’m not a parent with little kids, so there’s really no reason why I would ever go see something like this. Because of that, I have to be a little kinder and gentler than I might normally be with a film since there’s no way that The Secret Life of Pets 2 is trying to be anything more than a cute animated cash grab aimed at selling toys, t-shirts and Happy Meals. Even with all that in mind, The Secret Life of Pets 2 isn’t a bad movie. Sure, it’s rough around the edges, but most of the jokes land and the characters are pretty dang cute overall. With that in mind, I say it manages to do exactly what it set out to accomplish.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 doesn’t feel like it really needs or even deserves to be a full-length feature film. Overall, the story is simply a number of subplots cobbled together so that they eventually collide by the end. Max (Patton Oswald) and his buddy Duke (Eric Stonestreet) run off to the country in order for Max to learn not to be such a “scaredy cat” anymore. At the same time, Snowball (Kevin Hart) and a new dog, Daisy (Tiffany Haddish), take on a mission to set a tiger-free from an evil circus. Meanwhile, fluffy dog Gidget (Jenny Slate) has to recover a precious toy from an apartment filled with cats. Needless to say, there is a lot going on in The Secret Life of Pets 2, which is why I think this tale might have been better suited for the small screen where each adventure could have had a self-contained episode. Instead, it feels like these individual stories were simply thrown together in hopes that they would amount to a feature-length movie.
It’s important to note that Patton Oswald took over voice acting duties for the problematic Louis C.K. as the hero, Max. Honestly, I found it to be a pretty brilliant move, especially since Max has developed a bit of neuroticism in this film as a result of there being a new baby in the house, and no one does endearing neuroticism quite like Oswald. In fact, The Secret Life of Pets 2 managed to assemble a pretty impressive cast over all. Each actor seems perfectly suited to play their animal counterpart. This is especially true in the case of Harrison Ford who plays an old school, no-nonsense farm dog named Rooster. While Max deals with a sudden fear of, well, everything, Rooster teaches him that the first step to being brave is to simply act like you’re not scared. Fear might be a bit more complicated than that, but for a kid’s movie, I found it to be a charming little life lesson tossed in for the target audience.
Illumination has become a pretty solid player when it comes to animated movies ever since they introduced us to those obnoxious yellow minions in Despicable Me all those years ago. They might not be as impressive as other studios like Pixar or Laika, but their movies are never what I would call “terrible” (no matter how much I might hate minions at this point). The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a pretty solid follow up to last years The Grinch, in that it’s a fun family film. I certainly don’t think it’s going to be among the films nominated by the Academy for Best Animated Feature next year, but it’s definitely worth the price of admission if you’ve got little kids. During my screening, both parents and children seemed delighted with the movie and laughter filled the air. I even found myself enjoying a few of the funnier moments in the film. Overall though, The Secret Life of Pets 2, is a film made for children, which isn’t a bad thing, it just means that it’s not going to invest a lot of effort into pacing or plot.
I was happily impressed with the amount of detail that went into the animation for The Secret Life of Pets 2. At first glance, it seems rather cartoony and like it’s nothing special overall. However, if you pay close attention you’ll notice little things, like how the hair on the animals moves in close-ups or the specks of dirt caught in their fur. This attention to detail managed to carry over into a few of the jokes in the film as well. Being a kids movie there’s plenty of mindless humor and pet jokes that everyone can laugh at. However, even parents will find a few hidden gems of adult-oriented humor in there. Nothing too crass, but just grown-up enough to fly over the heads of the kids and reward the parents for taking them.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is the newest entry in what may be the year of animated sequels (following in the footsteps of The Lego Movie 2 and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World). While it might not be the best-animated movie I’ve seen so far in 2019, it’s certainly not an intolerable one. Sure, it’s got a ton of issues if you want to take the time to look closely at it, but remember to temper your expectations when it comes to movies like this. There’s no way a film about talking pets, that is clearly made for children, is going to be high cinema, and that’s ok. When all is said and done, it sports some incredibly detailed animation and an impressive cast that manages to make it the perfect movie to enjoy on a Sunday afternoon with the kids.
