![]() ![]() ![]() There’s plenty of humor in the film that only a 5-year-old would appreciate. When one of a bowl of Sea-Monkeys – weird-looking brine shrimp, a novelty pet sold from the back of comic books during the Cold War – cracks that, “It’s not our fault we don’t look like the ad,” you could have heard crickets chirping. Including a subplot involving animal control officers, the movie is essentially one long chase sequence,which itself is merely a pretext for a string of hit-or-miss jokes. With their irrational anger directed not at society, but at animals that have found human companionship – “leash lovers,” in Snowball’s spit-flecked parlance – the outcasts chase after Max and Duke, who are simultaneously being sought by a menagerie of their friends, led by a Pomeranian named Gidget (Jenny Slate), who has a crush on Max.Īnd that, as they say, is that. Called the Flushed Pets, Snowball’s crew includes an alligator (presumably dumped down the toilet once it got too big) and a pig once used for inking practice in a tattoo parlor. Snowball figures in the story thus: When the rivalry between a dutiful terrier named Max (Louis C.K.) and his slobbering new mutt of a housemate, Duke (Eric Stonestreet), spills out of their cozy apartment and into the street, the two dogs go missing, falling afoul of Snowball – a former magician’s rabbit relegated to the trash – and his subterranean gang of unwanted, undomesticated animals. Every minute the character is on screen is a demented joy, and every minute he is not is, well, not. Kevin Hart provides the voice of the film’s villain, a manic, maniacal white bunny named Snowball, and he is, as you might expect, hilarious. Though others at a recent screening were certainly gobbling up the animated, animal-centric comedy’s kibble of one-liners and sight gags, the film’s humor remained largely imperceptible to me. “The Secret Life of Pets” is like how I imagine dog food tastes: blandly palatable, but apparently containing some mysterious ingredient with an appeal that lies beyond my species. ![]()
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