The Secret Life of Pets: Pretty Much What You'd Expect

Have you ever wondered what pets do when you're not at home? Well, The Secret Life of Pets lets you in on the secret that pets actually have parties, explore the world, forge anti-human gangs, and get wrapped up in tons of crazy adventures while you are away. Overall, The Secret Life of Pets is a decent film; I mean with the creators of Despicable Me (Illumination Entertainment), you know there's a certain standard of quality that's definitely going to be met. However, despite the quality of the entertainment company, the film lacks in originality.

The film stars a dog named Max (voiced by comedian, Louis C.K.), who butts heads with another dog, Duke, when he was brought home by Max's owner. Max wants to get rid of this new dog because he feels that Duke is ruining his comfortable life and wrecking his relationships with his furry friends and his owner. As a result, they get mixed up in a crazy adventure with all sorts of zany antics.

The plot is pretty much what you might expect from a movie like this: predictable and somewhat unoriginal, but a good bit of harmless fun. Kids would definitely enjoy it. If you have children, this is certainly a good movie to take them to see. I Mean, the characters are, quite frankly, adorable and the dialogue is well-written and witty.  So how could a kid go wrong with that?

The animation is also fantastic. New York looks beautiful and is well-stylized, the detail work is good, and the movements of the 3-D models are fluid. I saw the movie in 3-D and it was okay, but it didn't really add much to the experience (i.e. it was not groundbreaking). The 3D wasn't annoying like it is in some movies, but it also wasn't like the visually "great" films such as Avatar or How to Train Your Dragon.

With a movie like this, there are certain token scenes that you expect will show up at some point. This movie is no exception. At the very least, there isn't a long drawn-out moping stretch where we are expected to feel bad for the victimized character. (I'm glad to see this cliché beginning to die out, by the way.) Most scenes are able to speak for themselves and don't need to rely on tropes, so I was somewhat disappointed when I saw some trope-ish scenes.

There's also a kind of awkward romance that goes on in this film. It seemed to start out of nowhere, was a little underdeveloped, and goes virtually nowhere in the end. The only point of the doggie love fling seemed to be to provide a reason for the cute, poofy, white dog to incite courage in others to rescue the protagonist. At the very least, it was largely played for laughs and wasn't too awkward.

The movie as a whole was good, but certainly not a classic. It is worth seeing in theaters if you want to entertain your children, however, because chances are they would love it. As an adult, it's enjoyable, but more worth renting.

Characters: 81/100 Story: 75/100 Animation: 85/100 Music: 64/100 Overall Quality: 80/100

Average Score: 77/100

Recommendation: Rent, or go see it with your kids.

Logan Christensen
(Pragmus Alpha)
CEO of Pragmus Media