The Secret Life of Pets 2 A Nap is Sounds More Exciting Than This Kids Movie Grade: C-
Source: IMDB
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a sequel to 2016’s Secret Life of Pets. Tells three tales or shall I say tails... Anyways, one consisting Max (Patton Oswalt) going on a trip to the farm. Secondly Snowball the bunny (Kevin Hart) being a super hero, helping a circus animal escape the circus. Lastly Gidget (Jenny Slate) watching over Max’s toy, while he’s away. As a end result: The film’s “message” is that we should all over come our fears and be brave... Ok. I’m so uninspired to talk about this kids movie, there’s really not much to talk about at all, but let’s get through it shall we. The animation is what you expect in every illumination film: Cheap. I’m going to say the animation looks fine, it doesn’t do anything spectacular or amazing, it doesn’t look bad, it’s just fine. Illumination is an animated company that makes animation for a low cost. Now look the strategy behind illumination is pretty smart, they gain a profit in every film just about... But wouldn’t it be better to at least try something new for once?! Like the film’s “message”: Stop living in fear and be brave. Give us a fresh new animated style, in which will wow us, the animated style is becoming flat and stale to the point where it’s fine to look at, but feels uninspired and to be quite honest even lazy. The characters are... Meh. I think Patton Oswalt did a pretty good job as Max, of course he brought us the legend Remy from Ratatouille to life. Max doesn’t bother me, he has a character and it does somehow progresses, even though it felt underdeveloped and rushed... But I’m going to forget about this character by tomorrow morning. Kevin Hart is massively annoying as Snowball, I’m getting tired of Kevin Hart’s gimmick of just screaming as a joke. The new additions of the Secret Life of Pets family, let’s talk about them. It feels as Tiffany Haddish has not been good in anything since Girls Trip, she’s just below mediocre voicing Daisy. The saving grace of this entire film regarding character: Rooster played by Harrison Ford, the character and Ford was actually good. Now I thought The Secret Life of Pets was average, however extremely disappointing. This sequel made me realize how much I’ve completely forgotten about the first film, it’s been three years and I can’t recall much of anything. I wasn’t expecting much from this film, I mean Illumination hasn’t made a good release since 2016 with Sing. This film can be expressed in one word: Exhausting. I felt completely bored out of my damn mind watching this, I sometimes checked my phone a couple times, I begged for this movie to just end despite it being an hour and twenty minutes. The story is just whatever, it’s not great nor terrible, it’s just mediocre. The film reminds me of other films and even a TV series, where I’ve seen this done before, but done much much much better. The TV series I’m referring to and you did not predict this coming: Seinfeld. Seinfeld is a show about nothing, yes there is a story in each episode, but it’s simply about nothing. Seinfeld was a great show about nothing, I loved almost every single episode, every character is great, humor is fantastic, stories were well written and entertaining. This film feels like watered down Seinfeld because this film is about nothing, it tells three stories but there’s basically no straight forward plot. Not every character is great, humor is dull, the stories were basic and barely entertaining at all. I can say the best story was Snowball’s but even that’s not an achievement, because that gotten boring at the very end. I’ve seen a joke where a dog wears a cone on his head before in Up, only it was actually funny. I’ve seen an adventure outside of the house done in Toy Story 2... I mean this film has you consistently thinking of other things better than this. As for the message of this film at the end, it didn’t felt earned at all. I feel it would’ve felt earned if the film was entirely on Max, you don’t need the other stories, just develop a story for Max better so the message can feel properly, where it doesn’t feel completely shoehorned in there. At first I had this film at a D rating, but then I thought nothing about this film was actually bad, I just didn’t enjoy myself at all. Overall, Secret Life of Pets 2 was just below mediocre. I only recommend this film for kids under the age of 12, they’ll find enjoyment in it, parents can just stay on their smart phones. If you have a fully developed brain, I can’t see anyone enjoying this, it’s just flat out boring. -Mitch Smietana