I liked the first Secret Life of Pets. It was a solid family movie, lots of fun. The previews, specifically, were the most hilarious as they showed what pets do when the humans leave. Now, of course, there can’t be an entire movie just showing those things, so the movie had to have a plot. Girl has dog, gets new dog, and first dog gets jealous. Makes sense. Then, there’s Kevin Hart’s hilarious little rabbit character which kind of takes the movie into left field as he runs an underground gang of discarded pets. But, it worked. I think the biggest reason it worked is that it was fun to watch all the characters interacting as a group along for the adventure.
Fast forward to part 2. Patton Oswalt and Eric Stonestreet’s dog characters have their lives turned on end because their owner gets married and has a kid. This seemed to be the impetus for the entire movie but unfortunately was only for 1/3 of the movie. That section of the cast go off for a farm visit where Oswalt’s “Max” learns not to be so nervous all the time, with help from Harrison Ford’s voiced dog named “Rooster”. Rooster was grumpy yet worldly-wise. He reminded me of Jack Palance from City Slickers and, I felt, came really close to discussing that “One thing” that answered Billy Crystal’s search for the meaning of life. He and Max had conversations that were very similar.
There’s the problem, though. Part 1, the gang’s altogether. Only a few characters are in the farm portion of this movie's story.
Kevin Hart’s bunny named “Snowball” puts on a superhero suit and runs through town with new character “Daisy”, voiced by Tiffany Haddish, trying to save animals in harm’s way. Their focus quickly lands on a mistreated white tiger from a Russian circus.
Gidget, voiced by Jenny Slate, leads the remainder of the cast on a mission to save Max’s squeaky toy that he left under her protection and she quickly lost.
So, for the majority of the movie, the gang that the audience liked seeing interact together in the first movie are split up into three separate storylines. Of course, near the end of the movie, all three stories converge, and everyone finally winds up together again.
While they’re together, you see the spark from the first movie, but it’s short lived because the movie is almost over. Instead of a new full movie installment, it came across to me as multiple shorts. It was almost as if the movie makers were pushing for a series order on one of the various streaming services out there.
Rate 3 out of 5
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