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The Secret Life of Pets 2 Movie Review

The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a 2019 animated family comedy film from Illumination. It’s a perfectly okay sequel in its own right.

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“Guy’s got two things in this life:

his water bowl and his dignity.

You take one, you take the other“

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‘The Secret Life of Pets’ was a very overrated movie for me, and certainly not one of Illumination’s best. It had an awesome trailer, but the end product felt surprisingly lackluster, and just okay. The sequel is pretty similar, though actually slightly better which I did not expect.

Max goes to live in the country which terrifies him while Snowball becomes a superhero and tries to save a white tiger cub from a poacher. I liked Max’s storyline fine for what it was, some of those moments in the country were great, but overall it’s nothing particularly remarkable or memorable. And Max isn’t the most exciting character here for sure.

I liked Gidget much more, and her unhealthy obsession with Max produced some quite amusing moments in the first act. But of course this movie is all about Snowball as he steals the show from everyone else very easily.

Him becoming a superhero bunny was not only relevant for the superhero subgenre craze these days, but it was genuinely hilarious in his movements and catchphrases. He’s just such a funny character and the only one who makes this movie really stand out at times. Kevin Hart is actually stupendous in this role.

But The Secret Life of Pets 2 is just overly scattershot in basically its two or three different storylines feeling like short films and not at all well connected into a coherent whole. Yes, because I am a huge fan of short form animation of yesteryear, I loved its inclusion here and individually they had some charm to them, but together they do not mash all that well, leading to a very uneven, poorly edited and paced movie.

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The animation is very nice and polished per usual for Illumination. The dialogue is fine for what it is, and some of the humor is quite good with the pet angle being the best one. But the action and humor could get way too childish at times, and the mid-section wasn’t the most involving one for me.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 is actually a slight improvement upon its predecessor which I did not expect. It still has forgettable action and humor at times, and of course it feels scattershot in its storylines feeling like different short movies instead of fitting into a coherent whole, but some of the scenes are very entertaining, the film looks great, it’s endearing at times and Snowball is such a hilarious creation, easily stealing the show from everyone else here.

My Rating – 3