Comme des bêtes

Animated film that takes place in NYC. Two dogs named Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) and Duke (voiced by Eric Stonestreet) get separated from their owner when out for a walk. The film chronicles their journey back home.

This is clearly aimed at kids but has plenty of humor that adults will enjoy. I'm in my 50s and laughed long and loud at some of the antics. The script is good and moves quickly. I was never bored. With one exception the voices perfectly fit the characters. The one exception was Snowball. He's a psychotic rabbit voiced by Kevin Hart. Hart can be funny but not here. He YELLS every word out at the audience. It gets annoying quick. The animation is great--very fluid and pleasing to the eye. The backdrops of NYC are breath-taking. The only real debit is there are some glaring lapses in logic but it IS a kids film. Recommended.

Fun fact: I met the universe of movie critics with The Secret Life of Pets. It was 2018, I was on holidays, my dog was hospitalised (she has been neutered), and I had nothing to do. So, I logged in Netflix, and watched this film. After that, "coincidentally", YouTube recommended me a review of this film. The guy was charismatic, and coincidentally, I went to the theatre to watch Aquaman on that same weekend. And obviously, after the session. I went back to that guy's channel (Otávio Ugá, from Super Oito, who's my favourite movie critic until today). After that, I started to follow cinema tirelessly.

Okay, this is a movie review, not a life story. And writing this text is something similar with what I did when I wrote my review of Interstellar. No influence of great memories or movie critics. And surprisingly, my opinion here didn't go as down as Nolan's film. I honestly think this movie is still good.

Yes, it's a Toy Story "rip-off"; yes, some of the jokes have aged badly; and yes, the screenplay is generic and lacks polish; but the characters are still charismatic, 70 to 80% of the jokes still work, and the soundtrack is spectacular (Alexandre Desplat, I can't expect less from a two-time Academy Award winner).

It's a simplistic argument, I know that, but I can't disagree, and I used it to talk about MicMacs, Jackass, and even Thor: Ragnarok; as The Secret Life of Pets is a comedy, its primary objective is being funny, and WOW, it's hilarious. Jenny Slate is an incredible voice actress, as I said before, I can't imagine another actor but Eric Stonestreet as Duke, Albert Brooks, Dana Carvey, Lake Bell and Hannibal Buress (Chloe and Buddy are fantastic) are also excellent, and I changed my mind about Louis CK. I used to not like his job as Max, as I still prefer the voice from the second film, but he fits the Jack Russell more than I thought (also, I don't see him anymore as a coadjuvant of his own story).

And now, an opinion that goes against the majority. All non-Brazilian reviews I've seen have slammed Kevin Hart's job as Snowball, the psycho bunny. To my mind, he's by far the best character. He has the best arc, the script knows exactly how to work with him, Kevin Hart's performance is passionate, and I still think he deserves a solo film.

I can't not recommend this movie. It's far from perfect, it's even far from great, but if you don't have anything to do and need a comedy of quality to pass the time, The Secret Life of Pets is a nice afternoon session, and it's another movie that I'm finally in peace with.

With the animation genre in such a golden age, more and more studios are starting to drop their name into the mix.

The latest one is Illumination Entertainment. After starting really well with Despicable Me, it has seemed to have made OK flicks such as Hop, The Lorax, Despicable Me 2 and Minions.

Now we have what many people are hyping as their best feature since Despicable Me, in the form The Secret Life Of Pets. The marketing has been pretty good and trailer suggests a good time at the cinema.

For me, I was pretty satisfied with what I saw. The first third of the film was its strongest part. It was introducing the characters well, there were some solid laughs and they were setting up the story nicely. However the longer the film went on, the slightly sillier it was getting. It was starting to lose its feet, and the gags were getting a bit too much. Thankfully, it was not that bad at all on the whole. It was still moving a long nicely, the characters were being solidly developed and the story rounded off pretty well. I think it might have peaked too soon and everything else felt inferior.

The voice performances were good. Jenny Slate continues to do well in her voice work and I felt she gave the strongest performance. Kevin Hart played his character really well, and had some nice laughs. Louis C.K. was well cast as the lead and gave us a character you could root for. The rest did their job well. They were not good enough to be memorable, but not bad enough to be negatively criticised.

On the technical side, the animation looked really nice and fitted the tone well. The action was entertaining if not a bit over the top at times. The character designs were strong, and I can see them being sold well as merchandise.

Overall, some of it felt disappointing. But on the whole I had a fairly good time watching this. It is definitely the studio's best film since Despicable Me. But with so many other animation studios delivering much stronger films at the moment, this could be forgotten sooner than you think. This might not do as well in the box office as originally expected. Especially a new Pixar film on the way.

There is also a short before the main film, and it features the studios most famous characters. It was o.k. But nowhere near as strong as Pixar's shorts.

... it's not a classic. Has a nice family feel to it and kids will like it, but unlike some recent animations doesn't have much for adults. The gangsta rabbit is quite funny, and I wish that Claudia the fat cat had more lines as there was scope to develop that character a bit more. The plot is pretty thin but there again you don't really expect a lot more from this type of film. I quite liked it but was also a little disappointed - it was so hyped and unfortunately didn't really live up to it. I could watch Happy Feet and Shrek all day but I wouldn't want to sit through this again. But all in all it is what it is. It's aimed at children and they will enjoy it - my grandchildren aged 7 and 10 certainly did.

I start this review by first acknowledging there's nothing wrong with this film from a family-oriented entertainment point of view. It's colorful, it's fun at times, provides a positive message about acceptance and provides a clever enough high concept to keep the kids on their keesters for 80 minutes. As a rudimentary children's film, you certainly can do worse.

The problem with The Secret Lives of Pets stems from its complete inability to marry story, character and concept into a discernible package. As it stands, the film is rushed, bulky and is chalked full of nonsensical choices that cripples any verdant ideas that could have been. It's a first draft; not a final product.

The story begins with a happy Jack Russell Terrier named Max (C.K.) who lives with his owner Katie (Kemper) in a surprisingly roomy Manhattan apartment. Things change drastically and suddenly with the arrival of Duke (Stonestreet) a large, shaggy Newfoundland whose introduced as a "new brother" to Max's chagrin. They, of course don't get along and after a series of confrontations find themselves lost. The first to notice they're missing is a lovestruck Pomeranian named Gidget (Slate) who recruits the rest of Max's friends among others to recover them from the vast streets of New York City.

The rest of Max's friends are barely worth mentioning as they're mostly utilized to push the buttons and pull the levers on some uninspired comedic set-pieces. They're not really useful to the plot, nor do they succeed in being the Toy Story (1995)-inspired resilient and diverse gaggle the movie hopes they are. Part of the reason for this is none of the side characters actually solve any problems. They jet here, they jet there but when faced with any obstacles they just seem to rush it. Gone is the creativity of having Mr. Potato Head fashion a new body out of a tortilla; now we have elderly Basset Hound, Pops (Carvey) hobbling through construction sites with stalwart confidence.

Frankly focusing on the story's tagged-on villains might have paid more dividends. The broad machinations of Snowball (Hart), a bunny with delusions of grandeur are easily the best part of the film, even if they remain painfully underdeveloped. Additionally his "Flushed Pets" group could have complicated Duke's allegiance to his new owner or more easily pegged Max as a fully socialized pet and therefore in need of re-education. Snowball was the best chance the movie had in getting audiences to truly know the characters we're supposed to be rooting for but instead they blew it on prolonged chase sequences and a sausage factory bit that goes absolutely nowhere.

And that gets me to the biggest problem I have with this film; the creators' approach to the high concept itself. The film tries to have its cake and eat it to, portraying characters with innately human characteristics but still clinging to the charming pet-like idiosyncrasies we know and love about our furry friends. For example, Gidget recruits the help of Tiberius (Brooks) a hawk who at first tries to eat her. She barely escapes his talons only to trust him once more because that's just what a peppy little dog would do. Max's friends Mel (Moynihan) and Buddy (Buress) don't even notice Max is gone because, being dogs, they're distracted by butterflies and squirrels. They're certainly not a rag-tag group of lovable rogues, they're a confederacy of dunces, successful only because of the ever changing allegiances of the main antagonist. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention Snowball at one point joins forces with Max to save Duke in a climactic sequence so blithely unnatural it renders the friends search and rescue completely moot.

This film is a rushed, characterless, flavorless kids film that just barely stretches its plot over the skeleton of its story structure. As I said before, if all you're looking for is a bland and forgettable family film, you could do worse. Yet provided it's appealing concept, you'd really think the animation studio that made Despicable Me (2010) could do better.