Entertaining Enough for Kids, But Adults May Be Left Wanting

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2016)

The Secret Life of Pets should come under the banner of 'a good concept yet not fully developed'.
There's no doubt it certainly recycles the old story arcs of the Toy Story films, firstly the premise of what pets do when you're not there (so it just replaces toys for animals) additionally it features a main character taken aback by a new arrival, the main character then tries to get rid of said new arrival & then they both get stranded & have to find their way back home...sound familiar? Additionally there is a moment in the storyline where a character recalls his relationship with a former owner akin to what Jessie does in Toy Story 2 therefore the similarities continue in pushing those buttons, now the problem of doing this of course is that you are setting yourself an impossible task to match up to & when they clearly didn't have the same quality of care involved in it in my opinion it isn't going to win over an adult audience who has seen it done so much better, but then again does it have to? The Secret Life of Pets is certainly very passable as a purely kids film and there is enough frantic animation, cute characters and humor kids of a certain age will no doubt connect with.
Now in terms of the voice talent involved Louis C.K plays our main lead animal Max & although he does a capable job he certainly gets overshadowed by a couple of support performances, namely Jenny Slate who plays Gidget & for me was very entertaining and without doubt the standout character on show, Albert Brooks who plays Tiberius a pet hawk also does some good work & Kevin Hart gets a showcase opportunity as the rather psychotic rabbit Snowball, beyond those performances though I felt the voice-work was a much of a muchness.
As I've said some of the storytelling is recycled, but also some of it is clearly chaotic in terms of that the film seems to be briefly focused one minute and then gets distracted with some other antics the next, now that can be fine as long as those antics are entertainingly worthy of diverting from the original storyline but it treads a very fine line in doing this.
The animation itself is vibrantly colorful and engaging to look at, but then again these days with a decent budget (as this film does have to the tune of $75million) that is not too difficult to achieve.
There are some nice comic observations on our relationships with our pets and I certainly laughed numerous times throughout but more in the vain of smirks and sniggers rather than belly laughs.
I do think that there was a lot of potential with this premise of a film and certainly feel that it has been a opportunity missed to be a truly great animated film, but as I've said previously it is certainly not a a bad film and it is extremely passable as an entertaining kids film but I do struggle to make a convincing case beyond that general consensus.
On a side note I really didn't need that unfunny Minions short film prior to the main feature, it utterly reeks of pure commercialism & audience grabbing bait on Illuminations part in order to garner more of an audience for the main film.
Now I've not done this for a while sooooo.....Hello to Jason Isaacs.