A Talented Voice Cast Wasted by a Lazy Script With Little to No Laughs

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 2016)

The Secret Life of Pets lacks the gut busting laughs of Illumination's other features and unfortunately adds nothing new to the animation genre. Without any real heart or memorable characters, even for pet lovers, it will likely end up being disappointing and forgettable.
Centering a Toy Story style plot around a group of pets in New York City sounded intriguing, and the trailers even hooked me in a bit. Sadly, the trailers already featured most of the film's funny surprises. People with pets, and particularly dog lovers, will get a kick out of some of the various gags throughout, but there's no substance here at all. It's quite simply a Toy Story rip off with pets that doesn't even really try to be anything else.
With that said, the voice talent is impressive here. It follows the similar pattern of animated films getting Hollywood stars to sell the movie rather than getting true voice talent. But at least most of the cast is made up of actors with stand-up background. Jenny Slate, Louis C.K., Steve Coogan, and Kevin Hart are just a few of the voices who lend their comedic talent to the picture. Hart and Slate have quite a few humorous moments, but I can't say I really cared about the story they were in. Unfortunately, that's all film ends up being, a bunch of mini gags with pets without a story to grab onto.
I was also hoping the film would take advantage of its wonderful New York setting a little more. Having Taylor Swift's 'Welcome to New York' play as the camera pans around the gorgeously animated NYC parks and landmarks was a great way to open the film, but that was about as good as the film got.
It's difficult to truly care about what's happening when there's nothing more to the characters than dull rip-offs of Disney creations. It's not just that the characters of Max and Duke are undoubtedly rip-offs of Woody and Buzz. But you can pretty much go through the entire character list and point to who they are in Toy Story, not to mention just how closely the story follows events of Toy Story 1 and 2. Sure, you get a few chuckles here and there with talented voices leading the way, but the story is derivative and the direction is weak. Which basically just accounts to one uninspired film.
+Voice talent
+Gorgeous animation of NYC
-Uninspired story/Toy Story rip-off
-No heart or substance
-Utterly predictable
4.9/10