In fact, that film's success speaks greatly to Illumination's true superpower: They are killer businessmen. Having been trailed out over a year before its release, and aimed at as broad an audience as possible, it's no surprise why it was so successful, but that did little to hide what a carefully calculated product it felt like, certainly not helped by them shoving a poster for their next film Sing in our faces. Nevertheless, it was a huge moneymaker, so it's no surprise to see them back with a sequel to their hit film. I'm of two minds on this movie. While in some ways it is more inspired than it's predecessor, it's also a lot less consistent as it progressively runs on fumes.
After his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) marries and has a son named Liam, her loyal Jack Russell Terrier Max (Patton Oswalt) grows attached to him, becoming overprotective to the point of stress itching. Taking a trip to the countryside with the humans and Duke (Eric Stonestreet), Max tries to wind down his anxieties, with the commanding Welsh Sheepdog Rooster (Harrison Ford) helping him get past his fear. Meanwhile, Max's pomeranian crush Gidget (Jenny Slate) has to infiltrate a den of cats to retrieve his favorite toy she's been entrusted to protect, while white rabbit Snowball (Kevin Hart) - under the guise of *Captain* Snowball - teams up with Shih-Tzu Daisy (Tiffany Haddish) to rescue a white tiger, held captive by cruel circus ringmaster Sergei (Nick Kroll), who's determined to retrieve it.
For what it's worth, the problems with The Secret Life of Pets 2 don't become immediately apparent until a decent ways into it. In fact, now that the film has abandoned the copy-cat Toy Story pretense (although, it has graduated to cribbing Finding Nemo), this actually allows for more inspired scenarios to take place, and the full advantage of the pets' perspective to take effect. Early on, I thought to myself "I might actually enjoy this more than the first." And that's because there's been a lot more inspiration peppered throughout, especially in regards to comedy. No, the problems come much later on, as the film is split between three sub-plots vying for attention, with various degrees of success.
The most significant time is devoted to Max, and his adjustments after Duke's arrival. Katie has since married, and has a son named Liam. It's funny to see Max gravitate so much to Liam, because he makes it known early on that he doesn't like kids, and yet this one, in much the same way that Katie stole his heart, wins him over, and sends his protective nature into overdrive. Max becomes incredibly stressed, habitually scratching his neck as a coping mechanism, resulting in a humorous recurring gag involving a safety cone fitted to him. And with the conflict of jealousy out of the way, we get a much more pleasant interpretation of his character, especially because Patton Oswalt (replacing original voice actor Louis C.K.) is such a great fit for this character. There's just something so naturally warm to his voiceover, with such an endearing tone of loyalty to him, as well as finding a nice balance between timid anxiety, and tickling observational comedy.
Once we take a detour to a countryside farm, that section places most of its focus on breaking Max out of his shell. This is where we're introduced to Rooster, the Sheepdog that holds order between the other animals, voiced by Harrison Ford. These sections prove to be quite funny, especially in how the other animals interact with Max and Duke, especially a mad turkey that stalks them around. But it's also given a sweet added layer of character, thanks to the interplay with Rooster. It isn't new ground for Ford, who's played so many gruff grumps in his career, he can practically play them in his sleep, but he feels genuinely enthusiastic with what he's given. He's essentially the figure telling Max to ease up, and he has such a great deadpan sense of humor, with lines like "You know how many electric cords I've chewed? Only one." He's a really engaging addition to the cast, and I do wish that he'd been given more screentime in the film.
After that, the biggest subplot, and some of the more overt comic bits, come from Snowball's misadventures in his new pet life. With his owner pre-occupied with costume play, Snowball's favorite role has become his alter-ego *Captain* Snowball, donning a tiny blue jumpsuit and mask playing pretend. But he gets the chance to do more, when a Shih-Tzu named Daisy offers him a risky adventure, to break out a gentle white tiger being held captive in a circus. These lead to some funny moments all throughout, particularly with Snowball's antics behind the mask. While it does defang some of Snowball's maniacal demeanor from the first film, Kevin Hart is back in suitably entertaining form. He's given most of the scene-stealing lines and gags, eliciting plenty of solid laughs from seeing a cuddly rabbit acting so larger than life, with an effective, if at times obnoxious hyperactivity that makes this film feel perfectly matched for Hart's sensibilities.
However, I do wish that Tiffany Haddish, his Night School co-star, had a bit more to do comedically, because while she does have some humorous zingers and comic visual bits, she's more often forced to be the straight woman to Hart's manic energy, hindering her strengths as a performer. These sections also feature some solid action and visual flair, especially the initial breakout where the characters escape from vicious wolf guards, that become recurring threats doing the bidding for the circus' cruel ringmaster Sergei. He soon becomes the film's primary antagonist, but very haphazardly at that, and is voiced by Nick Kroll donning a thick Russian accent. I'm still not a fan of Nick Kroll as a voice actor, but compared to his unbearable Sausage Party Douche, it may as well be Robin Williams in Aladdin.
But then we have the worst sub plot of the film, those surrounding Jenny Slate's Gidget, the hyper Pomeranian with a huge crush on Max. She's entrusted to watch over his favorite toy while he's away at the farm, but through an accident, she ends up losing it in another apartment, where it's being held by a horde of cats. This then leads to an unfunny recurring gag, where Lake Bell's tabby cat Chloe has to teach her "the ways of the cat," so that she can seamlessly integrate with the other cats. It features some of the least effective comedy of the film, and I dreaded anytime it popped back up, because it kept grinding the film to a staggering halt.
And that's not the only reason, because of the three main plot threads, it has by far the least relevance. Why is it even here? Because it only exists to facilitate returning characters like Gidget, Chloe, and others. I love Jenny Slate, and I think she's brilliant as a performer, but it feels like something that's been bolted on to the film so we can keep these characters, who otherwise are completely inessential to the plot, and who's only service is to pad the film to 86 minutes. This movie has a real problem with returning players in general, simultaneously feeling sapped for material, and yet the amount of characters also provide needless bloat. They even go so far as having Dana Carvey reprise his role as Pops, the paralyzed Basset Hound who travels by wheels. For all the significance this character plays, he ultimately could have been completely cut out. In fact, this is a character you could reasonably say died between movies. But we need all the meat we can find, so of course they're gonna plop him down wherever possible.
But as the movie kept going, and constantly cut between the three running threads, one thing became very apparent to me, that being how incomplete the movie feels. While some of these stories are more entertaining than others, none of them are anywhere near long enough to justify their own movie. What this progressively feels like is a collection of Illumination's mini-movies stretched out, and stitched together to merit theatrical release. Watching it becomes something of a test of endurance, where you sit there impatiently waiting for them all to connect, and so the film suffers from a severe identity crisis. And while they do all connect eventually, the way that it does integrate them into one feels very clumsy, with some characters being forced into the thick of the climax, rather than them easing into it organically. It makes no attempt at equally representing the lessons learned in each strand, and feels content to let the action take over, and drastically unwinds any emotional undercurrent.
Say what you will about the first film, but at least it felt like *one* consistent story. But seeing all of this play out, it becomes increasingly obvious how limited the entire premise of both entries are. We already saw that in the first in which the studio had to resort to aping Toy Story to stay afloat, but seeing the individual pieces connect in clunky fashion highlights how threadbare this sequel feels. Not only that, but this movie is airtight, but not in a good way. Like the original, it suffers from a severe rush in pace, in which the film is so afraid of losing the attention of its viewers, it can barely let a second go by to stop and take a breath, let honest emotion play out, or let any atmosphere sink in. It only further exacerbates just how flimsy the film is as a narrative, and by the time we've reached the hasty resolution, this movie is practically sputtering across the finish line.
It's just another example of Illumination's severe imbalance as a studio. They're amazing at marketing their films, I won't deny that, but as an artistic force, they've made some of the most aggressively mediocre family fare of the last decade. They've gotten their skills down to a well-oiled machine at this point, and mechanical it absolutely feels like. Their films just feel like pervasive marketing ploys, not entertaining enough to mask the fact that they're pure product, feeling brought to life by carefully calculated focus testing, and seeing that much effort gone into something so thoroughly average is disappointing.
I wish The Secret Life of Pets 2 could have been the chain breaker, but it's yet another reinforcement of the mediocre status quo.
**1/2 / *****
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