It's summer fun.
The Secret Life of Pets
Grade: A-
Directors: Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney
Screenplay: Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch, Cinco Paul
Cast: Jenny Slate (voice), Albert Brooks (voice)
Rating: PG
Runtime: 90 min
by John DeSando
"All of us have suffered at the hand of humans. They say they loves us, then they throw us out.” Snowball (Kevin Hart voice)
Snowball has a jaundiced view of the world, being a cute white rabbit without a home, a street urchin in a most enjoyable animation, The Secret Life of Pets. That he’s out to get humans is a given, but his new friends, Jack Russell terrier Max (Louis C.K.) and big mongrel Duke (Eric Stonestreet), come from a more privileged environment but are unleashed to the world when their human leaves for work.
The frequently hilarious and bizarre world of home and homeless pets and the tough animals they conflict and consort with is, of course, a figurative way of looking at how we humans treat those different from us (dogs, cats, for example). Add the dynamic of how we treat our pets, and this romp becomes Animal Farm and Toy Story, with enough slapstick to keep it light but also a happy minimum of preaching the importance of charity and friendship.
Max and Duke duke it out until they find they actually work as a team quite well, an ongoing lesson to see the strengths in others rather than their faults. Even the meanest street animal, living in the sewer, has enough wit and love to earn our respect regardless of how unrefined they are.
When Snowball, as tough and loveable as a rabbit can be, turns on its verbal street machine gun, step aside because he’s funny in ways that cross the social divide. Add to these delights a white Pomeranian who watches soaps and a sausage dog rubbing his back with a blender and you can see why I chuckled through most of the animation.
Secret Life is also about the difference between the haves and have not’s with plenty of good will to equalize that difference. But most of all, from the Despicable Me and Minions team, Illumination Entertainment, enough cynical observations to fill a Don-Rickles joke book and just enough heart to appeal to optimists. As sea monkeys say, “It’s not our fault if we don’t look like the ads.”
Yes, you’ve seen toys in Toy Story on their own when humans are absent, and in a sense this is the same story, including buddies who help each other out (remember Woody and Buzz). The difference in Secret Life is the witty, sometimes sardonic dialogue: for example, remarks that everyone is moving to Brooklyn, Snowball quips, "I'm not talking about hipster real estate trends.” The other difference is that so much is going on here the emotional rewards of Toy Story are not as prevalent.
But, hey, it’s summer and this is one enjoyable animation.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
