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Recent releases:
- Mothers' Instinct
- Sweet East, The
- Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire
- Immaculate
- Roaring Twenties, The (reissue)
- Soul
- Dune: part two
- American Star
- Dune: Part 1 (reissue)
- Jerry & Marge Go Large
- Argylle
- Forever Young
- Jackdaw
- All of Us Strangers
- Holdovers, The
- Mean Girls
- Poor Things
- One Life
- Ferrari
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Secret Life of Pets, The
Stars: Voices: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Albert Brooks, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Chris Renaud, Steve Coogan
Director: Chris Renaud
Here Illumination Entertainment/Universals fifth feature collaboration meets this reviewers key requirement for a family film lashings of lively comedy-action entertainment for youngsters and, serendipitously, enough sly and cynical comic touches to prevent accompanying adults from needing to reach for their sleeping pills during the screening.
At the start the audience, like Max (Im the luckiest dog in New York), is confined to owner Katie s Manhattan apartment and Max could not be happier.
The spanner (not spaniel!) in his idyllic works arrives in the shaggy shape of large and demanding canine Duke who, rescued by Katie, takes over both the flat and Maxs idyllic lifestyle; and it ends up with the two pooches having to live on the city streets and forced to try and thwart the wild efforts of deranged rabbit Snowball, who commands an army of abandoned pets out to get their revenge against humanity
Vocal casting is apt (I particularly enjoyed Dana Carrvey speaking for an elderly but keen-to-go pooch with paralysed hind legs), the animation is attractive and while The Secret Life of Pets doesnt actually breed anything really ground-breakingly original in its storyline or animation, most youngsters (and accompanying adults) would be barking not to enjoy themselves.
Alan Frank
USA 2016. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour.
86 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: U.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.
Review date: 20 Nov 2016