The Secret Life of Pets 2 Review
PG: Some action and rude humor
Universal Pictures, Illumination
1 Hr and 26 Minutes
Director: Chris Renaud | Screenwriter: Brian Lynch
Voice Cast: Patton Oswalt, Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell, Nick Kroll, Dana Carvey, Ellie Kemper, Chris Renaud, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Harrison Ford
Release Date: June 7th, 2019
Max faces some major changes after his owner Katie gets married and now has a child named Liam, up to the point he becomes overprotective. On a family trip to the countryside, Max meets a farm dog named Rooster, and both attempt to overcome his fears. Meanwhile, Gidget tries to rescue Max's favorite toy from a cat-packed apartment, and Snowball sets on a mission to free a white tiger named Hu from a circus.
Good ol’ Illumination, the McDonalds of animated studios. They put little effort into the narratives and animation, but audiences just eat them up anyway, resulting in them making a shit ton of money. Seriously, none of their features have a budget above $85 million and all of them make a profit. Not going to lie, I love McDonalds, so that analogy means I enjoy Illumination movies. Some are more mediocre than others, but I enjoy them nonetheless, even though the majority of their catalog is either sequels, Dr. Seuss adaptations, and anything Despicable Me-related.
The first The Secret Life of Pets was hilarious to me and I still stand by my take, finding it a better movie than Pixar’s Finding Dory which was released around the same. As far as profit goes, Illumination (somehow) is a good competitor to Pixar. Because of the first film holding its own and making $875 million on a $75 million budget, it was obvious that The Secret Life of Pets was going to get a sequel. While none of the trailers ever convinced me of any sort of anticipation for it, I was eager to see what this film was going to do and there are several things I like about it.
Patton Oswalt replaces Louis C.K. as the lead, Max, and I can’t wait for the conversations that stir out of kids asking their parents why Max’s voice sounds different. First off, Oswalt’s voice as a dog is more palatable and nurturing than C.K.’s, so it’s not so bothersome to hear the change of voice of the Jack Russell Terrier that leads the picture. What makes the change welcoming is the monologue that starts off the movie. The movie opens relatively strong as Max narrates the challenges of being a pet as his owner Katie meets a guy, gets married, and has a kid. Within the first ten minutes, Max’s reflective journal-like narration expresses how to adapt to welcoming a child into his life, changing his entire perspective of the world. With that, Oswalt delivers his all into his vocal performance, making Max a more vulnerable personality than he was in the predecessor while still maintaining his sarcastic cynicism. As far as “recasting” goes, this was a great fit. Then, I noticed how the animators emphasized more of the anxieties of Max and worked around facial expressions which matched Oswalt’s voicework. Although this is the same character people know, Oswalt does a fantastic job making Max his own.
Switching more to Max, his character arc is strong whenever it’s focused on. Because of being imprinted to his child, he develops a neurosis that is relatable. He scratches himself a lot when he’s stressed, he becomes overprotective, he becomes more emotionally vulnerable, etc. A lot of those aspects work and where his story goes is well developed. The film brings along a new character named Rooster (Ford), a Welsh Sheepdog who is fearless and doesn’t take shit from anyone or anything. Mind you, this is the first voice role Harrison Ford has ever done, so it’s either the fact that the script kinda moved him or Illumination just has that dough, but for his character’s sake, I think of the former. The best scenes in the movie come from Rooster encouraging Max to bulk up and become a stronger pers-- I mean, canine. A lot of those elements are rushed, which is a shame. The comedy works best when Harrison Ford is just observing Max constantly screwing up and acting so domesticated. If the story focused on the two bonding more and having it be more played out, then this would’ve been a much more significant sequel. But WHAT THE HELL AM I TALKING ABOUT? IT’S ILLUMINATION. They don’t give a crap about STORY!
If you’re looking at the trailers for The Secret Life of Pets 2 and going, “Why does this sequel feel more like a string of vignettes than an actual movie?” that’s because it is. Honestly, that’s what the past several Illumination features have been and with this one down the hatch, it’s officially transparent that the studio is only in it for the money.
All of my criticisms for the past several Illumination features, from Despicable Me 3 to The Grinch, can be applied to this film where they show the utmost potential and have genuine emotional scenes ONLY AT THE END, but never maintain that strength for the hour and twenty minutes of runtime, which is just full of comedic sequences that never really progress any form of a story.
I may be praising the Max storyline, but the film has two other subplots that don’t really serve any purpose at all. Gidget’s is somewhat linked to Max’s, but then you have Kevin Hart’s Snowball who is now a domesticated pet that is obsessed with being a superhero, being enlisted by a dog named Daisy (Haddish) to rescue a baby tiger from an abusive circus ringleader.
With the predecessor, there were only two plots going on, but what made them work was the organic connection which fit all of the characters’ motivations and personalities. Here, everyone is on a separate path narrative-wise that, by the time the climax does occur, it’s taciturn. The way the scenes play out are often dull, for most of the humor isn’t that funny. The film treads away from visual gags and funny dialogue for more scenes of action, which often comes off as annoying.
I already couldn’t stand Kevin Hart screaming and being loud in live action films. Why do you think I wanted that doubled down in animation form? It was one thing that Snowball’s character is more domesticated this time around going from being a leader of a anti-owner organization to a domesticated pet with a superhero fetish but to also strip the coolness of that character just have him scream every other line and have him be utterly useless is so lazy. Plus, he’s paired with a Shih Tzu who is just Tiffany Haddish as a dog. There isn’t much of a personality given to the dog’s cause it’s just Tiffany Haddish doing what she does best. The action sequences in their subplot is fast paced and slightly exhilarating but it doesn’t bare any much of a purpose to the entire story.
The physical humor doesn’t always work because they’re gags we’ve seen so many times before. Due to how loosely the story is handled, where scenes of each characters’ narratives head to a dead end with a bad punchline, the movie just becomes incredibly boring.
Hey, if you’re a pet person, this is for you. I mean, I own a cat now so I was laughing my ass off at all the Chloe gags and the “Gidget becoming a cat” subplot, but that’s not to disregard how little effort is made in the script. That was the same problem I had with Despicable Me 3 and The Grinch. While I was able to forgive Despicable Me 3 because it was the first time the studio kind of did this, their efforts have now become lazy. I mean, they’ve been lazy for a while in the script department, but even the continuity of its world has reflected that as well.
Watching this back-to-back with the first film was a bad idea. I don’t want to be that person to dig into the inconsistencies of The Secret Life of Pets, but since Illumination isn’t going to give a damn about their productions, I will call them out on it. With the predecessor, a lot of the pets were a bit sporadic in their residences where one lives across the street from the other and what not. Now, they all reside in the same building... for convenience. I would go into more issues about the inconsistencies, but honestly:
Toy Story 4 is literally around the corner. This is mostly a waste of time. I truly hope Illumination puts effort into their narratives someday because, with how often they churn out sequels, it’s becoming more transparent that this studio’s intention is to shamelessly take money from families because their animation is pretty.
Be lazy all you want, Illumination, but I’ll tell you this: once you make that Mario movie and it ends up being another lazy cash grab, I’m rolling up to your studio like:
I’m kidding. But please, do give a shit soon.
Though its animation is beautiful and has its moments, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a lesser sequel that never manages to capture the same bark as its predecessor.
Rating: 2.5/5 | 56%
