Max the terrier must cope with some major life changes when his owner gets married and has a baby. When the family takes a trip to the countryside, nervous Max has numerous run-ins with canine-intolerant cows, hostile foxes and a scary turkey. Luckily for Max, he soon catches a break when he meets Rooster, a gruff farm dog who tries to cure the lovable pooch of his neuroses.
‘The Secret Life of Pets’ is a weird franchise; I don’t see kids really walking around with Max plushies, nor do I see stories filled with toys from the movie. The original unexpectedly made all this money and so now we have this generic film. There are many, many worse films you could show you children if they like animals - it’s a harmless 90 minutes and its not like their aren’t laughs. I just wish the film was a whole lot more creative.
- Chris dos Santos
Read Chris' full article...
https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-the-secret-life-of-pets-2-crowd-pleasingly-generic-again
Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/sff for more Sydney Film Festival reviews.
I usually do the thing where I just give films 10 stars if they are fun and 1 star if they aren't...but Pets was just OK, so I'm taking the middle path.
And really, it's getting 5 instead of one because of Rooster, who gets the only real laughs in what are scenes that are basically ripped straight out of City Slickers... only with dogs. He even has a few stories that will be infinitly quotable.
Otherwise you have the laser gag and that's really it as far as laughs.
The animation is smooth and has a nice sort of Gershwin feel to it, but otherwise the Pets 2 is nothing to write home about. It doesn't really win with the comedy vibe or the adventure vibe, it all feels rehashed, like we've seen it all before when it was better.
And honestly that's because we have.
