The Secret Life of Pets
Review by Paul Preston
Welcome to Today I Watched…, a series of posts documenting my new challenge – watch a movie a day for the rest of my life. Keep coming back to TheMovieGuys.net to find out what I watch each day…and get my take on it.
When I see a movie that’s a new release in theaters or for home viewing, I’ll give it a proper review in the “Reviews”, otherwise, I’ll write about it here.
April 24, 2017 – The Secret Life of Pets
This seemed like a good flick for my flight back from New York. Although I come in not the biggest Illumination Entertainment fan. In the grand hierarchy of animation studios, I’d rank them:
1. Pixar (high point – Up)
2. Walt Disney Animation Studios (with Zootopia and Wreck-It-Ralph, they’re on a hot streak)
3. Aardman Animation (high point – Arthur Christmas – SEE IT!)
4. DreamWorks (high point – Shrek)
5. Warner Animation Group (high point – The Lego Movie)
6. Illumination Entertainment (high point – Despicable Me)
8. Fox/BlueSky (high point – The Simpsons Movie)
9. SONY Pictures Animation (high point – Arthur Christmas, ‘cause they teamed with Aardman!)
10. Nickelodeon (high point – Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius…maybe?)
Studio Ghibli remains unranked because I’m horribly under-versed in their filmography. Getting to a lot of their films is one of the reasons I started the movie-a-day thing.
Illumination is pretty much the opposite side of the spectrum from Ghibli, reveling in dopey shit most of the time. I’ll go on record as saying Nickelodeon ranks so low because it’s just not for me. I’m an adult man and not the demographic at all. In the same vein, I don’t get the Minions. They do dumb shit, say dumb shit and I don’t get it. There’s no greater comment made by their presence, there’s no plan in place outside of “look how stupid this is”. So, with that, now Illumination made a Minion-less movie last summer and I’m finally getting to it on a plane.
A year removed from The Secret Life of Pets, the film has racked up an $800 Million+ worldwide gross and a generally positive reception from critics. But as with the Minions before it…I don’t get it. Illumination follows in the wake of Pixar, but they don’t go to many lengths to distinguish themselves from John Lasseter’s groundbreaking animation company, outside of failing to reach their highs. The plot of Pets is basically Toy Story. Just as Woody was the most-beloved toy who is forced to make room in his house for an outsider, Buzz, Pets is about the most-beloved dog, Max, who is forced to make room in his home for an outsider, Duke. But where Pixar dove into relationships between the toys and the relationship between the toys and Andy (and the neighbor kid), the secret life of pets is not explored, as opposed to a chase plot where the animals exit the home for an adventure in the big city. I think the film would have found no shortage of material in the homes where the animals live, to exit the house and get chased by animal control is Dog Story 101.
And the story of how they’re gonna get back home further pit stops for things like the dogs eating a bunch of sausage in a musical number. Doesn’t mean much. The film circles around at the end to the tune of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” as pets reunite with their owners and the film strikes my favorite chord since the opening scenes. It’s a shame they left the comfy confines of a good story for the big city of noise and poop jokes in between.
Directed by: Chris Renaud & Yarrow Cheney
Release Date: July 8, 2016
Run Time: 87 minutes
Rated: PG
Country: USA/Japan
Distributor: Universal Pictures
