Maybe it would all be a little too easy on audiences if the pet characters were any cuter, whereas any animal enthusiast can tell you it’s the disposition that matters. There’s the poodle who spends his afternoons headbanging to heavy metal, for example, and there’s Chloe (Lake Bell), the otherwise lazy cat who freely helps herself to whatever’s in the fridge. The instant their owners leave for work, the pets drop the obedient routine and revert back to their true selves - the farther that might be from their actual disposition, the better. Humans already have a tendency to anthropomorphize their pets, and here, tapping into that wish we all share to know what’s going on in our animals’ heads, screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio (who have co-authored all of Illumination’s features except “Minions”), along with Brian Lynch (who wrote “Minions”), take that impulse to the extreme, imbuing these critters with the ability to speak - along with a host of other behaviors that would normally require opposable thumbs and a fair understanding of modern electronics. Not that there’s anything wrong with these particular animals, apart from the fact that they all look just a little bit off, as if someone took the runt of each litter and pumped them full of Cheez Whiz. The formula may be familiar, but the personalities are completely fresh, yielding a menagerie of loveable - if downright ugly - cartoon critters banding together to help these two incompatible roommates from ending up on the streets.īased on an original idea by Illumination honcho Chris Meledandri, “Pets” is the studio’s most accomplished feature, from both a story and animation standpoint, tapping into an endlessly expandable core concept - which could conceivably be repeated ad infinitum, ideally with an entirely new domesticated ensemble each time out.
In what may as well be Illumination’s answer to “Toy Story,” “ The Secret Life of Pets” imagines how domesticated animals behave while their owners’ backs are turned, concentrating on a dynamic where newly adopted dog Duke (“Modern Family” star Eric Stonestreet, in the Buzz Lightyear role) disrupts the balance in a household where Max ( Louis C.K., as the Woody equivalent) had previously been his human’s best friend.
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