Lazy and Uninspired

Rating: 5/10 (9 August 2016)

One doesn't fully appreciate a really good animated film until one sees a mediocre one.
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that animated films don't need to be kept to the same standard as movies for adults, because kids will be happy with so much less. But compare "The Secret Life of Pets," a serviceable but lackluster film, to something from Pixar, say, or the "How to Train Your Dragon" series, and one is less inclined to forgive the creators of "Pets" for being so lazy.
The idea of the social life that pets carry on with each other while their owners are away is a good one and could provide plenty of material for a wonderful film, but this movie instead goes for the hard sell approach and creates an overly-complicated plot mostly lacking in wit, giving us too many characters doing too many things, none of which we care much about. The voice work is adequate and uninspired, like the rest of the film, and it's a real liability that the voices of the two main characters (Louis C.K. and Eric Stonestreet) who start off as rivals and end up as pals, sound too much alike.
Grade: C