With The Secret Life of Pets (2016) it’s clear that Illumination Entertainment has not regained the mojo it lost with the decidedly meh Minions (2015). As in Minions, the problem lies not in the animation, nor the voice talent – but in the story, a formulaic & predictable sequence of events featuring characters who may seem interesting, even edgy in the storybook, but didn’t have it on the screen – including the power-mad bunny.
Documenting how two dogs that hate each other learn to love each other, there’s not a lot of personal growth beyond that statement. Unlike Illumination‘s Despicable Me (2010), which featured a character that gloried in his evil who is then transformed through his discovery of a love for 3 adopted waifs, the dogs don’t have far to go to overcome a personal dislike. Escaping the clutches of a gang of dumped pets bent on revenge on the human race, imprisoned by the local animal control team, while a group of their friends forms a rescue posse to find and rescue them before the owners arrive home from work, various characters are created, sketched in – and then placed firmly in the background to play their parts. Even when Gidget steps forward to take command of the group of pets hunting for their missing friends, it feels like something planned and executed, not an organic part of her character.
The characters could have been important. For example, the hawk, Tiberius, who initially must fight his predatory urges when it comes to the small animals surrounding him. He could have represented some facet of the ambiguity of primal instincts vs how civilization leads us to ignore those instincts, for the betterment of ourselves and those who we don’t attack. But after his initial inner struggle, he simply becomes another member of the pack, with little to distinguish himself.
Other opportunities are lost. Duke, the new dog who inadvertently muscles in on Max’s territory when Max’s owner adopts him, eventually, and through the urging of Max, makes it back to the house of his first owner – they became separated through Duke’s foolish chasing of a toy. But there’s a new family in his house, and the family’s cat informs Duke that the former owner is dead. Duke yells that cats are LIARS!
And then we’re on our way, back on the road.
Imagine if they had ended up at the hospital, in time for reunification as the first owner dies, knowing his Duke is OK. Such are the ties of family. Or at a nursing home, illustrating that even the tightest bonds eventually fray and disappear, that in the face of death even the bonds of love wither.
Here’s the truly sad part of this failure of a movie: it has in its plot an important moral subject of these times, the abandonment of pets, and does absolutely nothing with it. The use and abuse of pets has some predictive value as to the future behavior of children, as does the behavior of their parents, who often hold the fate of pets in their hands. This could have been explored, to illustrate to those people who think pets should be dumped when they become inconvenient that every action has an effect – and it may reflect to their discredit if they are not good keepers of those lives they choose to take under their care. Instead, the fate of the gang of abandoned pets is not explored in the least, and the power-mad bunny that leads them? A few strokes of a child’s hand is enough to soothe him back into submission.
It’s like telling someone this is a fine dark chocolate – and then handing them a wax-cake.
This is a movie of lost opportunities, and cannot be recommended (although young kids should love it). Unfortunately, it’s done quite well at the box-office, which may obscure its failings to management. However, the tension between the art sector and the private sector is a different rant, which I shall not indulge in here. Those interested in the importance of understanding the sectors of society should follow this link.
