Review of The Secret Life of Pets (2016) by Christopher E — 18 Aug 2017

One of the less memorable animations in recent years.

For their fifth fully-animated feature-film collaboration, Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures present The Secret Life of Pets, a comedy about the lives our pets lead after we leave for work or school each day.

I think a film with this idea could be done really well, but honestly, in the end, it felt more like a cash grab than anything. Yeah, I think it's slightly interesting. I mean, it's a play on "Toy Story", and I love those films. But this movie just felt like it was made for kids, with less than adequate attributes to appeal to adults.

I guess if I were to give this movie credit for something, it would be the animation. It's not groundbreaking animation or anything, but it's solid. It's well done and I give props to the animation team. There weren't any real problems with it, and it was more than suitable for this situation.

I didn't actually find many of the jokes or situations funny. I think it was pretty ridiculous and like I said, meant for kids. The movie is fine. I don't think the screenplay was awful by any means, but it was so out there and illogical that I just couldn't jump on board. I was never really invested into the story and I never really cared for any of the events happening at hand.

I really don't have much to say about this film. It's watchable, I guess. But it's more of a throw-away film than anything else. It'll probably entertain the younger audience for sure, but it won't offer much for anyone that's older than a millennial.