In a city of humanoid animals, a hustling theater impresario's attempt to save his theater with a singing competition becomes grander than he anticipates even as its finalists find that their lives will never be the same.
Directors:
Garth Jennings,
Christophe Lourdelet
Stars:
Matthew McConaughey,
Reese Witherspoon,
Seth MacFarlane
Dracula, who operates a high-end resort away from the human world, goes into overprotective mode when a boy discovers the resort and falls for the count's teenaged daughter.
Count Dracula and company participate in a cruise for sea-loving monsters, unaware that their boat is being commandeered by the monster-hating Van Helsing family.
When Gru, the world's most super-bad turned super-dad has been recruited by a team of officials to stop lethal muscle and a host of Gru's own, He has to fight back with new gadgetry, cars, and more minion madness.
Friendly but forgetful blue tang Dory begins a search for her long-lost parents, and everyone learns a few things about the real meaning of family along the way.
Minions Stuart, Kevin, and Bob are recruited by Scarlet Overkill, a supervillain who, alongside her inventor husband Herb, hatches a plot to take over the world.
In a Manhattan apartment building, Max's life as a favorite pet is turned upside-down, when his owner brings home sloppy mongrel Duke. They must put their quarrels aside when they learn that adorable white bunny Snowball is building an army of lost pets determined to wreak revenge.Written by
Supermikey71
There were a few characters in Snowball's gang such as Kenneth the Duck, Gary the Goose, Rob the Rat, Bob the Guinea Pig, Timmy the Turtle, Johnny the Chinchilla, Beta the Pitbull, Alpha the Greyhound, and Gamma the Bull Terrier all of which were planned to be voiced by Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Jeffrey Garcia, Michael McShane, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Jack Angel, John Cygan, and Joseph Bologna all nine characters were scrapped from the film for unknown reasons since Snowball was originally going to have a trio of dogs as henchmen. See more »
Goofs
When the dogs are in the park, Max's leash keeps changing position on his collar, from one side of his "Max" name tag to the other. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Max:
[narrating]
I've lived in this city all my life. I'm Max. And I'm the luckiest dog in New York because of her. That's Katie. Katie and I, well, we have the perfect relationship. We met a few years ago and, boy, let me tell ya', we got along right away. You know, it was one of those relationships where... where you just know.
See more »
Crazy Credits
In the mid-credits scene, Buddy and Mel attend what they think is a costume party at Leonard's house. Buddy dresses up as a Barbaloot from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and Mel is dressed up as a Minion. The party is interrupted when the owner returns. See more »
Kids movies continue to swarm into the theaters, and Hollywood's trailer editors have been hard at work baiting us in. With Disney owning the box office this summer, Illumination Entertainment (the creators of Despicable Me) are taking a shot at the box office run. This weekend we got The Secret Life Of Pets, a movie that has been highly anticipated since it's trailer debut from so long ago. It was indeed a very entertaining trailer, but we all know how trailers can be deceptive now don't we? So I have headed into the trenches again to report on the latest film to hit the silver screen.
The GOOD Cute/Kid Friendly Funny Good animation
When you watch, or for many rewatch, the trailers you most likely saw the characters as cute, cuddly animals doing hilarious things. Good news! The trailer is accurate this time and provides the cute factor you expected (including the very scenes you saw in the trailer). All of the characters are adorable, the main ones being bouncy, fluffy, high-spirited animals that will make you want to say Awwwwww. Our design team found a way to maximize all the cute features of an animal and sell it to the families that will lead to merchandising. Even animals you wouldn't think cute (like snakes, gators, and lizards) get the cuddly personifications. Hopefully you have gathered from this, that the design is kid friendly and will have your little ones enamored.
But cute is only the hook, what keeps the interest going in this film? The answer is the comedy of course. The stunts the animals pull are entertaining and the dialogue itself had me chuckling at many of the media references. Voice acting only helps sell the comedy more, especially Kevin Hart and all his high pitched screaming. Your kids though will be the ones to enjoy the comedy the most though, as it is slapstick, simplistic antics with digital pets. Running into walls, making funny faces, or going to the bathroom on the floor are just some of the things you will see that had toddlers chuckling in their seats.
And a small bonus, that really shouldn't be a surprise, is that the animation is good. Illumination Entertainment certainly has their anatomy and physiology down being able to superimpose human qualities while still maintaining there animal qualities. Glad to know that our animation studios are still able to produce great works. If only they could have put that effort into the next few qualities.
THE BAD The Story Lack of Uniqueness Trailers showed you a lot of the movie
With the comedy and animation being the obvious focus, you have to wonder how the story fared in this movie. Unfortunately it didn't fare that well. Oh it's not that bad at all, but the problem is that it lacks anything memorable or emotionally driving for me. The writers crammed a lot of plots into a short 90 minutes run time, and the resulting production was a very rushed, shallow tale with little development. A split focus resulted in little emotional build-up, and there was no intriguing qualities to keep my attention on any of the cast. And the goal they were trying to achieve was very limited and didn't really set any time limit or urgency to the tale.
To add more fuel to that fire, The Secret Life of Pets wasn't really that unique of a movie. We've had talking pet movies before, where anthropomorphic animals traverse a city or town that often involves a very extreme villain (think Oliver and Company or Homeward Bound). Those tales stick home because they had edge, depth, and moments that stick out in your mind. Not the case with this movie, as again there was no drive to make our pets grow, develop, or even go through much struggle at all. It doesn't have any twists to mix things up either, and therefore leaves little to spoilt. In addition, much of the movie, including a lot of the funny parts, is revealed in the three trailers out and therefore you can save yourself some major bucks by just rewatching all of the trailers. Yeah, I know that is definitely a disappointing factor.
The Verdict
The Secret Life Of Pets is exactly what the trailer promises, fun, entertaining, and wildly adorable. Younger audience members, as well as those very young at heart, are the target group for this movie hands down. It has the laugh factor certainly, and the cast of characters are a motley crew that I certainly enjoyed. However, the story is very simplistic, the lack of emotional suspense, and that much of the movie is told in the trailers make this movie not the most memorable of the summer. I can't say it is worth a trip to the theater in comparison to some of the other kid movies, but it makes for a good family outing.
My scores are:
Animation/Comedy/Family: 7.5-8.0 Movie Overall: 7.0
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Kids movies continue to swarm into the theaters, and Hollywood's trailer editors have been hard at work baiting us in. With Disney owning the box office this summer, Illumination Entertainment (the creators of Despicable Me) are taking a shot at the box office run. This weekend we got The Secret Life Of Pets, a movie that has been highly anticipated since it's trailer debut from so long ago. It was indeed a very entertaining trailer, but we all know how trailers can be deceptive now don't we? So I have headed into the trenches again to report on the latest film to hit the silver screen.
The GOOD Cute/Kid Friendly Funny Good animation
When you watch, or for many rewatch, the trailers you most likely saw the characters as cute, cuddly animals doing hilarious things. Good news! The trailer is accurate this time and provides the cute factor you expected (including the very scenes you saw in the trailer). All of the characters are adorable, the main ones being bouncy, fluffy, high-spirited animals that will make you want to say Awwwwww. Our design team found a way to maximize all the cute features of an animal and sell it to the families that will lead to merchandising. Even animals you wouldn't think cute (like snakes, gators, and lizards) get the cuddly personifications. Hopefully you have gathered from this, that the design is kid friendly and will have your little ones enamored.
But cute is only the hook, what keeps the interest going in this film? The answer is the comedy of course. The stunts the animals pull are entertaining and the dialogue itself had me chuckling at many of the media references. Voice acting only helps sell the comedy more, especially Kevin Hart and all his high pitched screaming. Your kids though will be the ones to enjoy the comedy the most though, as it is slapstick, simplistic antics with digital pets. Running into walls, making funny faces, or going to the bathroom on the floor are just some of the things you will see that had toddlers chuckling in their seats.
And a small bonus, that really shouldn't be a surprise, is that the animation is good. Illumination Entertainment certainly has their anatomy and physiology down being able to superimpose human qualities while still maintaining there animal qualities. Glad to know that our animation studios are still able to produce great works. If only they could have put that effort into the next few qualities.
THE BAD The Story Lack of Uniqueness Trailers showed you a lot of the movie
With the comedy and animation being the obvious focus, you have to wonder how the story fared in this movie. Unfortunately it didn't fare that well. Oh it's not that bad at all, but the problem is that it lacks anything memorable or emotionally driving for me. The writers crammed a lot of plots into a short 90 minutes run time, and the resulting production was a very rushed, shallow tale with little development. A split focus resulted in little emotional build-up, and there was no intriguing qualities to keep my attention on any of the cast. And the goal they were trying to achieve was very limited and didn't really set any time limit or urgency to the tale.
To add more fuel to that fire, The Secret Life of Pets wasn't really that unique of a movie. We've had talking pet movies before, where anthropomorphic animals traverse a city or town that often involves a very extreme villain (think Oliver and Company or Homeward Bound). Those tales stick home because they had edge, depth, and moments that stick out in your mind. Not the case with this movie, as again there was no drive to make our pets grow, develop, or even go through much struggle at all. It doesn't have any twists to mix things up either, and therefore leaves little to spoilt. In addition, much of the movie, including a lot of the funny parts, is revealed in the three trailers out and therefore you can save yourself some major bucks by just rewatching all of the trailers. Yeah, I know that is definitely a disappointing factor.
The Verdict
The Secret Life Of Pets is exactly what the trailer promises, fun, entertaining, and wildly adorable. Younger audience members, as well as those very young at heart, are the target group for this movie hands down. It has the laugh factor certainly, and the cast of characters are a motley crew that I certainly enjoyed. However, the story is very simplistic, the lack of emotional suspense, and that much of the movie is told in the trailers make this movie not the most memorable of the summer. I can't say it is worth a trip to the theater in comparison to some of the other kid movies, but it makes for a good family outing.
My scores are:
Animation/Comedy/Family: 7.5-8.0 Movie Overall: 7.0