Incredibly uneven

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2018)

"The Secret Life of Pets" is a very successful film from Universal, the same folks who brought us the "Despicable Me" franchise. While I am thrilled that the studio decided to do something other than yet another sequel, "The Secret Life of Pets" is a highly uneven movie.
The story starts off terrifically well. The opening sequence is simply breaktaking--with some of the best CGI you'll ever see. I was very impressed with this...as well as watching all the various pets acting like pets. However, the film simply did not maintain this momentum. Once the two dogs, Max and Duke, got lost...so did the story. The notion of human-hating animals living in the sewers and stealing dog pound trucks is pretty lame....and unappealing...especially when they talk about murdering people. Instead of being cute like the film had been, it tries to get edgy and it misfires and is not really appropriate for young kids. This will sound weird, but the film was much better when it had little in the way of plot. That's one of the reasons I loved "Minions"-- because it was less wedding to plot and more to fun and silliness. Overall, an uneven film that becomes somewhat tiresome after a while. It starts off amazingly...then quickly loses momentum