Rated: PG
Directed by: Chris Renaud
Co-Directed by: Jonathan Del Val
Written by: Brian Lynch
Produced by: Chris Meledadri, p.g.a., Janet Healy, p.g.a
Voices by: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Patton Oswalt, Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Lake Bell with Harrison Ford.
‘If you pee on it, you own it’: The wisdom of Terrier Max.
We all love our pets and their shenanigans. My cat Cloud, AKA Cheeky brat, AKA Ching-Chong-Chunk is a constant source of entertainment and companionship.
The Secret Life Of Pets (2016)) managed to tap into that delight of humans and what we imagine our pets get up to when we’re not around.
Here, in The Secret Life Of Pets 2, we get Terrier Max (Patton Oswalt) returning with the loveable house-mate and mutt, Duke (Eric Stonestreet), along with pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) taking a steam in the dishwasher and Chloe (Lake Bell) teaching Gidget the way of the cat.
The characteristics of animals we know and love are captured in detail making me smile in recognition, cat-meowing-in-sleeping-human-face included.
So starting out, all I could think was, Adorable.
In this next instalment, Max is coping with the introduction of another member of the family, baby Liam.
With Max stress-scratching we see the running theme of fear and rising to the challenge of life and facing fear, all cumulating when the family visit a farm.
Here we meet a wise farm dog and crazy stalker turkey.
All the birds are crazy-eyed and brainless, managing to always get me giggling.
Then there’s this side-story with an evil circus and lion and rescue mission from wolves I didn’t really get.
The humour was more slapstick as well, moving away from the cheeky pet behaviour that makes The Secret Life Of Pets so good.
Sure, this side-mission added adventure and was perhaps aimed at the youngsters in the audience; but I didn’t really sense a positive response from the kids either.
The super-hero bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart) with Daisy-the-brave (Tiffany Haddish) felt like another story from another movie. And it didn’t really gel because the attachment to Max and Co. was already made.
I just wanted to keep watching Max at the farm and Gidget and the cat Chloe back at the city apartment block – that’s what I was interested in. That’s what I found funny: the behaviour of the characters as pets, not as super-hero adventurers.
So, some of the film I adored; the rest, not so much.