Watchable, perhaps enjoyable but certainly a mess

Rating: 5/10 (22 December 2016)

I watched this a while ago in cinema and it was a severe disappointment. Now, I did watch Inside Out and Zoomania earlier, so I was probably pretty spoiled and expecting another awesome animated movie but what the film delivered was really poor in my opinion.
I like the idea, a movie about pets and what they do in secret when their owners are not home. What I wanted were beautiful scenes and those I did not get sadly. Illumination Entertainment tries to be funny throughout the entire film, but fails in doing so: I could hear maybe two chuckles during the entire movie, so it was not only my lack of sense of humor or a bad day, the movie is genuinely not funny. There are a lot of "jokes" that get repeated too many times, each time still not making anyone move a muscle in their face. Some scenes are unnecessary and make me feel like the plot (which is loose, not smooth and confusing/made no sense to me) was not enough - not like the movie is a long one anyway - and they had to fill in some random scenes. You won't feel a lot of suspense or see many memorable scenes. I kind of like how the characters develop, of course the main development being between Max and Duke, however the characters are still flat. The climax was a big letdown.
You can still watch, enjoy and like this movie with your family I guess, especially if you have pets that will watch it with you :) or if you simply like the animals, but don't expect a great movie. It is a mess for me. This is of course my opinion (I like Despicable Me + 2 a lot!), but I think the ratings do go hand in hand with this feedback.