The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
Directed by Chris Renaud
The quiet life of a terrier named Max is upended when his owner takes in Duke, a stray whom Max instantly dislikes.
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What critics compared The Secret Life of Pets to
There are the requisite film homages and references (“The Fugitive” an obvious go to, “Some Like It Hot” less so) to keep the adults happy, and the parkour-performing wiener dog is just pure fun.
“I’m a cat,” she replies acidly — to which Pops offers the wonderful final line from Some Like It Hot .
"Nobody's perfect," he shrugs, stealing a line from Some Like It Hot.
The animation is gorgeous to the eye, while the vocal work is excellent, with Hart probably having the most fun as the diminutive but militant, chatterbox rabbit (who, if the species matched, would be some distant but angrier relative to Eddie Murphy's Donkey from the "Shrek" movies).
Kevin Hart voices the precious-but-vicious little furball — another choice casting that’s solid, but not as unexpected as, say, Antonio Banderas playing Puss in Boots in the “Shrek” movies.
Soul feels like the first Pixar film where no one cared if the youngest could keep pace with the ideas as long as they ooh and aah at the Seussian sketch of its spiritual settings and cackle at the slapstick of a second act that, quite honestly, feels a small step above The Secret Life of Pets .
The Secret Life of Pets took pets and somehow made them cuter.
The Christmas curmudgeon here is almost cuddly, more Oscar the Grouch than truly Grinchy, and his dog, Max, isn’t the mangy cur of Seuss but a happy, well-cared-for canine companion, perhaps a refugee from The Secret Life of Pets .
This latest incarnation of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch has been produced by Illumination, the studio responsible for the Despicable Me franchise, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing and directed by Yarrow Cheney (who worked on The Lorax as an animator) and Scott Mosier (who’s probably better known as the producer of much of Kevin Smith’s early work).
Producer Chris Meledandri, responsible for the Despicable Me films and The Secret Life Of Pets, has birthed yet another family entertainment loaded with sugar-rush slapstick and treacly overkill.
Illumination has had incredible success with the Despicable Me series, Minions , and The Secret Life of Pets .
Directors Yarrow Cheney (“The Secret Life of Pets”) and Scott Mosier (a Kevin Smith producer co-directing for the first time) have fun with the parallel stories of the Grinch preparing to imitate Santa and steal the Whos’ presents while Cindy-Lou and her friends prepare for their own Christmas Eve mission, and Kenan Thompson brings ho-ho-hos as Whoville’s most enthusiastic Christmas decorator.
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It would seem the good folks over at Illumination Entertainment (the braintrust behind “Minions,” and “The Secret Life of Pets” and who are slowly edging out Pixar in terms of cartoon dominance) have learned from past mistakes, carefully curating a breezy family-friendly adventure that’ll make you want to run home and power up the old ‘64 console or GameCube.
On February 1, 2018, Nintendo and Universal Studios’s animation department, Illumination (Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets), reached a deal to develop an animated film of Super Mario Bros. Initially to release during the holidays of 2022, the film was pushed back to spring 2023 for additional time for the film’s development.
It became a cliche a few years ago for animated small animals to team up to steal a car or truck, after a bunch of them the same year (including Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets ) all did it.