Everyone has a funny voice they use when impersonating the interior thoughts of their dog or cat – “The Secret Life of Pets” is an animated continuation of that game for 90 minutes.
Perhaps you think your Jack Russell terrier would have a gruff but lovable voice – like Louis C.K.’s – and in this film that’s Max, who’s happily ensconced with his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) until she brings home a new dog, a sloppy Newfoundland called Duke (Eric Stonestreet).
Max goes from joyfully sharing true doggie thoughts like, “There is no other ball like this one ball!” to a destructive bout of one-upmanship with his unwanted fur brother. Thanks to an inattentive (but no doubt well-compensated) dog walker, the pair runs afoul of that always-demonized minority group – dogcatchers – and are lost in the animal underworld.
Given the movie’s New York setting, Max and Duke find alligators in the sewage system, but the more frightening antagonist is Snowball (Kevin Hart), an unhinged white rabbit engaged in the quixotic pursuit of pan-animal freedom from human hands. The sewers ring out with his cry, “Liberated forever, domesticated never!” When he meets spooked pups he calls them “pets” with dripping disdain and dismisses them as “leash lovers.” Hart’s frantic voice is well matched to a persona full of rabid intensity and ill-timed rabbit pellets.
The rescue rangers are neighbors from Max’s building: Gidget (Jenny Slate), a cotton ball Pomeranian, Chloe (Lake Bell), a rotund tabby cat, Buddy (Hannibal Buress), a smooth operating dachshund, Mel (Bobby Moynihan), a spazzy pug and Tiberius, a resigned, Albert Brooks-y red-tailed hawk voiced by Albert Brooks.
The team entreats local don Pops (Dana Carvey), a paraplegic basset hound, for his assistance. The old timer is oblivious to the doggie bacchanal around him – there’s poker playing, of course, and toilet bowl chugging. For him, “Every breath is a cliffhanger,” but, after some convincing by Gidget, he agrees to lead the pack.
A not terribly complicated homeward bound narrative allows for some strange turns - director Chris Renaud (of the “Despicable Me” franchise) has Max and Duke stumble upon a Brooklyn sausage factory and gorge themselves in a beefy, Busby Berkeley-style reverie. He also includes many winking visual references, skipping from the drainage pipe jump in “The Fugitive” to turtle shell shooting from Mario Kart video games to the boulder in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
One issue with the film is that Max and Duke are just dogs whereas Snowball and Gidget are characters. His bunny triumphalism is exquisite – “I feel heroic and handsome!” – and she is a great romantic. Her devotion to telenovelas has her so convinced of her love for Max that she braces alley cats with bad cop slaps before melting to swooning tail wags when she’s reunited with the terrier of her dreams.
In the end though they’re just like any New Yorker, trying to figure out the most efficient way to get back home to a Manhattan apartment they can’t afford, to people they love completely, without complete understanding.
“The Secret Life of Pets” is showing at the Sonoma 9 Cinemas. Rated PG. Running time 1:30. Visit www.cinemawest.com.
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