The Secret Life of Pets should’ve been a short. Actually, they already made that short (sort of) in the form of the film’s wonderful trailer, which fancifully imagines what pets do when we’re not home: A manicured poodle turns on hardcore music and starts thrashing around the house; a dachshund uses the electric mixer for a quickie massage; a cat contemplates the contents of the fridge, hesitates, then eats a whole chicken; a Jack Russell waits by the door for his master to come home, geeking out when she returns briefly to retrieve her keys before falling back into his impatient funk. It’s creative and fun. But it leads to a question: What are they going to do with the rest of the film?
The results are in and, beyond a few ingenious touches here and there, The Secret Life of Pets is a fairly standard kiddie caper that borrows heavily from Toy Story with an A-list voice cast and some top-flight animation. It is sure to delight little ones and fitfully amuse adults.
The aforementioned Jack Russell is named Max and he is voiced, with everyman élan, by Louis C.K. A crisis befalls his utopian set-up when his beloved human Katie (Ellie Kemper) unexpectedly comes home with a shaggy, smelly, oversized rescue mutt named Duke (Eric Stonestreet), who steals Max’s bed, his food, and his status as the singular object of Katie’s affection. Honestly, I would’ve preferred if the film were just about Max and Duke learning to negotiate the terms of their new arrangement at home—especially since we’re able to meet other pets in the apartment building where they live, including that fridge-raiding cat (Lake Bell), a hyperactive pug (Bobby Moynihan), the pleasure-seeking Dachshund (Hannibal Buress), and a precious little fluffball named Gidget (irresistible Jenny Slate), who harbors an unrequited crush on Max.
Instead, Max and Duke get cornered in an alley by a pack of feral cats, only to be picked up by the dog catcher, then escape, and finally end up in the sewers with a menacing gang of animal castoffs led by a deceptively cute bunny named Snowball (Kevin Hart). Some of this funny, most is merely busy. There is one surreal and inspired bit involving Duke and Max sneaking into a sausage factory and living the dream—there’s even a sausage dance number set to the tune of “We Go Together” from Grease, of all things—but mostly it’s a lot of sight gags and chase scenes.
Maybe it’s not fair to compare the animation arm of Universal (which has also given us the Despicable Me/Minions franchise) with Pixar, which basically makes three kinds of films: good ones, great ones, and masterpieces*. But they make it hard not to compare when they put out a film that is such a blatant (and second rate) Toy Story ripoff. What’s missing, notably, is the poignancy, the achingly human emotion Pixar brings to all its productions. There’s a flashback in The Secret Life of Pets involving Duke’s previous owner that would’ve been absolutely devastating in Pixar’s hands. Here, it’s merely a plot point.
*Okay, Cars 2 sucked.