The Secret Life of Pets Review

"Yes. Big, big stuff today, Gidget. I got big plans. I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna wait for Katie to come back."

The Secret Life of Pets is an animated film directed by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney and stars the likes of Louis C.K., Jenny Slate, Lake Bell, Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart and Albert Brooks. the film follows the relationship between Max (Louis C.K.) and Duke (Eric Stonestreet) and after a series of events end up being lost in New York City, and Gidget (Jenny Slate) Max's best friend leads a group of pets to try and find her best friend.   

Now lets start of with what I enjoyed about the film, first of all the opening montage of the film, in which the pets go about the daily routines when there owners are not there, is brilliant, the characteristics of the pets really do come alive in that sequence and creates a lot of humour one section that sticks out is Chloe the cat going through her owners fridge and trying not to eat her owners food (which is so funny to watch). I would also like to mention that the animation is really good, its colourful and bright (maybe a bit to colorful in places), its defiantly up to the standards that we have to come to expect from the likes of the Despicable Me Franchise and last years Minions film. The voice cast for the film is also good and defiantly highlights the characters personality and personally in my opinion helps advance the natural characteristics that pets naturally have that are extremely accurate to how real pets act in the real world, which added an extra level of enjoyment for me as an audience member.

On the other hand personally the film didn't exactly meet my expectations that I had before viewing the film (I was a little disappointed!). One of the strongest part of the film was the initial montage with the pets going about their daily routine, but for me as soon as that stopped and the actual plot of the film started it seemed to drag a little and I lost some of the excitement I had when I was watching the pets in the initial montage. In regards to the plot there was also some sequences that didn't really need to be in the film, for example a certain sequence inside the sausage factory (I won't spoil it for you!) I understand the target audience for this film is kids, but that sequence was extremely strange (and I mean really strange) and really took me out of the film and I didn't really know what I was watching. I also have to point out that the initial montage even though it was brilliant had mostly been revealed in the initial first trailer for this film, and in the montage sequence in the film only a couple of shots were actually new and unseen which was a little disanointing. (but don't get me wrong that sequence is still impressive)

Overall this film is ok and I would recommend this film for families, I mean the kids will absolutely love this films and there are some really good voice acting and animation sequences and really realistic representation of pets that are given a slight twist which just makes them really fun to watch, but for me didn't deliver on the plot and had some really strange sequences which took me out of the film.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars