It's a typically fast adventure graced by a diverse range of critter characters as a slavishly loyal Jack Russell pooch (voiced by Louis CK) goes to war with his large new roomie (Eric Stonestreet) and they both end up on the street.
It's kind of amazing with all the anthropomorphizing that goes on in animated movies that there hasn't been a movie with the exact premise of The Secret Life of Pets before now. And it's a shame that premise wasn't better executed.
The Secret Life of Pets is that rare achievement: an animated movie that entertains on so many levels, and at such a level of cockeyed brilliance, that it really is fun for the whole family.
Draws on the universal experience of pet ownership to draw out the "awww" in all of us. But the film butt-scoots by on its premise. There's not much more going on, thematically or emotionally below the surface.
As the owner of a Maine Coon I've weed-whacked into a goofy lion cut, I gulped when Snowball the bunny, a former magician's assistant, bellows, "All of us have suffered at the hands of man!"
The real reason to watch The Secret Life of Pets is for the animation, with the beautifully sprawling vistas of Manhattan a wonderful reflection of the animals' idealised version of the city as their home and centre of their universe.
