{"id":43331,"date":"2019-06-10T09:34:32","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43331"},"modified":"2019-06-10T09:34:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:34:50","slug":"the-secret-life-of-pets-2-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/06\/the-secret-life-of-pets-2-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Secret Life of Pets 2 \u2013 Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just barely enjoyed 2016\u2019s \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets.\u201d The\ncutesy animated movie about house pets had to scratch and claw its way to a Two\nand a Half Star rating (now a B-) from me. I remember that the main story about\ncozy domestic dog Max (Louis C.K., a bad casting choice at the time and an even\nworse one in hindsight) having his world turned upside down by overbearing\nrescue Duke (Eric Stonestreet) and the two having to learn to cooperate and\nshare did nothing for me. Fortunately, that movie was saved by its supporting\nplayers, especially villainous bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart). Now comes a sequel\nthat does not need to be saved by Kevin Hart (of all people), it\u2019s funny at\nevery turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after the first movie, Max and Duke\u2019s owner (Ellie\nKemper) got married to loving schlub Chuck (Pete Holmes) and the two had a baby\nnamed Liam. Max (now voiced by Patton Oswalt in the film\u2019s first brilliant\ndecision) was at first worried that Liam would turn his world upside down, but\nhas come to realize that he\u2019s turning it upside down for the better. Skipping\nover the part where Max worries about the owner\u2019s attention being divided like\nit was with Duke is the film\u2019s second brilliant decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max and Liam get along fine, and Max has even assumed the\nrole of protector for the toddler. He takes the role seriously, so seriously\nthat he\u2019s beginning to hurt himself with anxiety attacks whenever he thinks\nLiam might be in danger, which is constantly. He has to wear a cone for the\nfamily\u2019s trip to a farm, where he meets a gruff herding dog (Harrison Ford)\nwith a different approach to\u2026 parenting, basically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The farm storyline gives purpose to Max, Duke, and the\nhumans. But the movie has many more marketable characters it wants to use. So\nit comes up with a story where pampered poodle Gidget (Jenny Slate) loses Max\u2019s\nfavorite toy in the home of a batty cat lady and has to reach out to wicked\nfeline Chloe (Lake Bell) to teach her The Way of the Cat to get it back. That\nstill doesn\u2019t give everyone a purpose, so there\u2019s yet another storyline about\nSnowball fancying himself a superhero and teaming up with a determined Shih Tzu\n(Tiffany Haddish) to rescue a tiger from a deranged circus owner (Nick Kroll).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it was just the mood I was in when I saw the movie or\nmaybe the writing and direction really are better this time around, but I\nthought that every joke in this movie landed perfectly. At no point was I\nrolling my eyes or thinking the humor was beneath me or wanting the movie to\nend. As if the well- executed humor wasn\u2019t enough of a reason to see this\nmovie, it is an animated movie about furry animals and a baby, so I shouldn\u2019t\nhave to tell you that it operates on the highest levels of cuteness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t say that the film holds up incredibly well under\nscrutiny. Storylines could be tightened, characters could be developed (Duke, a\nmajor physical presence, contributes almost nothing to the story).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This movie isn\u2019t painstakingly written and directed on the\nlevel of, say, a Pixar movie. But its flaws are well-hidden under layers and\nlayers of fun. I wasn\u2019t even out of the theater before I felt compelled to send\nmy mom a text telling her how much I loved this movie. And if I\u2019m in a hurry to\nrecommend this movie to my own family, it\u2019s only fitting that I highly\nrecommend \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets 2\u201d to you and your loved ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Secret Life of Pets 2\u201d is rated PG for some action and\nrude humor. Its running time is 116 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver I just barely enjoyed 2016\u2019s \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets.\u201d The cutesy animated movie about house pets had to scratch and claw its way to a Two… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}