The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
(In French, in theatres, June 2019) I was oddly charmed by the first The Secret Life of Pets—I could identify with some of the more sentimental material about humans and their pets in between the more obvious jokes and fast-paced action sequences. As a result, sequel The Secret Life of Pets 2 doesn’t quite have the same element of surprise going for it, and may stretch the sauce a bit too thin. For a very long time, the film feels episodic: despite the promising prologue, it feels like a filler episode between weightier instalments. It takes until the third act, and the coalescing of the three subplots, before the film regains its coherence and feels like a single film again. While the result is not bad, I have a feeling that by stretching the story past its previous boundaries (by going to the farm, by including non-pet animals) it loses sight of the emotional connection to house pets that the first film maintained so well. At least, in the Illumination Studios tradition, there are the silly jokes to fall back on: The Secret Life of Pets 2 ends with Kevin Hart as a rabbit singing “Panda,” so at least there’s that to look forward throughout the film.
(Second viewing, On UHD, July 2021) Don’t you hate it when subplots metastasize and take over a film? A second look at The Secret Life of Pets 2 suggests that the script was rushed, and the point of the series was lost along the way. Numbers may help: The Secret Life of Pets was released in 2016, while its sequel came out three years later, which is not a lot of time to get even an 86-minute animated film done from the ground up. With that kind of rush, you can’t expect a sober reworking of material at all stages, and the time constraints show most clearly at the script level. While the first film kept a tight focus on pets and their relationship with humans (culminating in a return-home montage that still gets me to this day), this second film goes off in three different directions, not always aligned with the core strength of the premise. The one subplot that works best on an emotional level is the one that develops the characters from the first film, as our dog protagonist learns to deal with his owner’s marriage, pregnancy and young son – suddenly, there’s an expansion of the emotional themes of the first film, and you can see some progress along the way. I’m not that fond of that subplot’s setting on an upstate farm (diluting the concept of pets through livestock), but I like where it starts and where it ends. I’m also marginally tolerant of the subplot involving other animal characters getting into crazy adventures with other pets, in this case a Pomeranian forced to go undercover as a cat to retrieve a toy from a crazy cat lady apartment – it fits neatly with the “secret life” aspect of the story, and it’s got the biggest laughs of the film while giving something to do to the ensemble cast still stuck in New York City. It’s the third subplot that gives off airs of not having been completely polished, as a rabbit character with delusions of super-heroism goes chasing after a cub tiger being abused by a circus owner. That’s the part of the film that seems to come from a different series, about as far away from the “pets” aspect of the series as possible. It’s the subplot designed for thrills rather than emotion or laughs, and while it does deliver an action-packed climax, it’s a disappointing tag that feels as if it was added early in production to round off the film’s short running time, and couldn’t be replaced or improved given the film’s target release date. Oh, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is not terrible by any means: the animation’s good, the jokes land and the characters are recognizably themselves. But the added spark from the first film is not always there, and here is such a stark difference in intent from the three subplots that the structural artificiality of the result is highlighted. Kids will like it, but adults may not have as much fun.
