Every Pet Gets Their Own Story in 'The Secret Life of Pets 2'

Illumination's tenth film, The Secret Life of Pets 2, is super cute, finely animated, and hilarious to boot, that it almost relies too much on these. Which is not so bad considering this movie is really about the cute pets, and how they live, struggle and play while their owners are away.

It's still filled with Illumination's slapstick and mocking humor--this time exploring the emotional growth of our lead pets who each have their own struggles in the world they're living in.

United International Pictures

Terrier Max (Patton Oswalt) faces major life changes when his owner gave birth to a baby boy named Liam--who he initially thought would be a hindrance to his loving relationship with his master but turned out to be his favorite person ever. Cutie but rowdy Snowball (Kevin Hart) starts to believe that he's a real superhero after his owner kept on dressing him up in cute superhero doggy costumes. Fat cat Chloe (Lake Bell) helps Pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) unleash her inner feline so she can sneak into a cat lady's apartment filled with a bunch of catty (no pun intended) pussycats after she lost Max's favorite toy, Busy Bee.

Each of them gets their own story that it got a bit too disconnected and a little less engaging for the viewers. Max's story revolves around his owner's enlightening family trip to the farm, where he bonded with Duke, his adopted brother, and friend, where they immersed with poultry animals who don't reall behave the way they do. There they met a big strong-looking farm dog named Rooster (Harrison Ford) who pushes Max to release his inner hero and letting Liam experience life on his own.

United International Pictures

These new characters are good enough as they are, but Max's interaction with other pets was minimized to the core. It's Gidget, Chloe and Snowball's stories that are more intertwined and their adventure is far more interesting and hilarious than Max who's supposed to be a part of their gang. It really helps that they are joined by a fearless Shih Tzu named Daisy, who is distinctively voiced by Tiffany Haddish. They all only come together at the third act though, which gave us limited time to be invested in their friendship.

Even Max's relationship with Liam wasn't fully fleshed-out after a touching montage of they way they met at the beginning. There's too much going on between him and his self-esteem that they almost forgot the pet-owner story.

Then again, this is about the secret lives of pets, and in terms of the title, they pretty much created a great and entertaining fable for these furry leads. Each get to have their own arc and they're all successful in achieving it. It's just a little inconsistent and disconnected.