To Illumination Studios now, taking a valiant amount of time away from the franchise which makes them the money and putting that into the sequel which, with the very best will in the world, nobody really asked for. 2016's The Secret Life Of Pets was fun. A flimsy and somewhat linear storyline, but played out by a committed voice-cast and packed with plenty of jokes for animal lovers. So where do we go from there?
PLAGUED This seems to be a question which has plagued writer Bryan Lynch as he struggles to deliver an amiable, if bare-bones, continuation of the pet-centric New York which was crafted first time round. The cast are still on great form (with the inclusion of Harrison Ford as the taciturn sheepdog, Rooster), the character animation and sets are highly polished (although Illumination's character-design for the humans is still as lacklustre as ever), and the whole thing zips along at a heady pace.
And, somewhat ironically, it's this briskness which is the film's undoing. At 86 minutes including all the end credits, this is already a short trip to the movies. But the story quickly splits into three strands (Max the terrier goes on a farm adventure, Snowball the bunny's superhero mission, Gidget the pomeranian's stealth mission) which occur almost entirely separately from each other, only tying up at the end with some strenuous narrative gymnastics. It quickly begins to feel like a trio of straight-to-DVD spinoff adventures, hastily reformatted into a movie at the 11th hour.
FAMINED That's not to say that The Secret Life Of Pets 2 isn't enjoyable (and for a U-certificate it does extremely well on the all-round laugh count), but the lack of imagination that's gone into the title*1 is a fair reflection of the screenplay. With the well of 'hey, dogs do this funny thing' gags just about run dry in the first installment, the humour here is broader slapstick and sight-gags. A fair amount of cat jokes still remain, but any threequel is going to have to think of some actual new content.
For all my grumbling, The Secret Life Of Pets 2 is actually pretty good considering its absolute lack of purpose. And with the trailer for The Queen's Corgi playing right beforehand, you just make the absolute most of the laughs wherever you can find them these days, y'know..?
*1 and while it's more of a marketing concern, check out that tagline on the poster. "They still have their secrets". What? Is that it, Terry? Have you literally written this having no knowledge of the first movie's content, but figuring you can just blag something based on the title structure alone? The 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer of family animation? Michael Bay called, he wants you to join his scriptwriting team... [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
It seems like we've waited for ages since the first teaser trailer for The Secret Life of Pets landed. I was pretty much sold on that one alone, even though it only set the tone of the comedy, leaving the plot open to speculation. So the day is finally here, and I'm even happier to report that a) all of those visual gags made the final cut and b) they're all in the first five minutes, so we get them in the context of the movie, but we're not sitting waiting for them to land (a bugbear with most comedy flicks, to be fair).
Illumination Entertainment's summer tent-pole opens with a five-minute Minions short, which is essentially a solidified slapstick episode, and exactly what the little yellow critters do best. It sets the mood well for the main event, which is consistently funny and charming in equal measure. Following the adventure of Max and Duke, an odd-couple of canines living with their owner in a Manhattan apartment-block. When they become separated from their regular life, friends and acquaintances of various species from the neighbouring apartments come together and lead a rescue mission which will take them to the mean streets of Brooklyn and back. There's action, danger, bonding and just maybe a tear or two, but above all... laughs.
The film's U-rating means that audiences of all ages should have no problem enjoying it, and the script stays well away from double-entendres that play to the older and younger crowds simultaneously. And while that's a comedic technique I certainly enjoy, I also admire the commitment to write a script which is laugh-out-loud funny for everyone, and on the same level. Between the scripted and the visual jokes, there's not a lot of downtime (and there's also the finest non-copyright-infringing Super Mario reference you'll see in any film this year).
Louis CK and Eric Stonestreet lead the pack as the squabbling dogs, backed up ably by a voice-cast as enthusiastic as the animation team. Jenny Slate, Lake Bell and Ellie Kemper coolly threaten to steal the show at any moment, as does Mr Kevin Hart*1.
If there's one weak-spot, it would be that the storyline itself feels a little linear (all the more notable since three writers are attached). The gaps are more than patched over by the constant stream of gags and character-work, but it's debatable if the film will withstand more than a couple of viewings (which could be a problem if you have small padawans who won't be as narratively critical once it hits DVD and streaming).
But, most importantly, The Secret Life of Pets is an enormous amount of fun. That's the only bar the film sets for itself, and one which it clears easily…
For the communal experience of hearing a room full of people laughing together? Sure.
It does.
Always difficult to tell with animation and voice-work, but it's a high-point for the CV, yes.
I just might.
If you don't laugh at this movie you're clearly a monster.
There certainly is.
Level 2: The Secret Life of Pets features the voice-work of Lake Bell, who starred in Man Up with Simon 'Dengar/Unkar' Pegg.
*1 Yeah, don't tell anyone that I've really enjoyed a Kevin Hart movie, okay? Don't worry, Central Intelligence comes out soon; I'm sure that will reset the scales of critical judgement…
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
No Escape (SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 103 mins / Dir. John Erick Dowdle / Trailer
Occasionally, a film will purport a basic premise which threatens to de-rail the entire movie. If the viewer can suspend their disbelief long enough to cross that bridge then that's great, but many will be unable to accept it unquestioningly. Before the political, socio-economic, and survival-morality quandaries are even raised in No Escape (spoiler: they escape), we're expected to believe that a man with a nose like Owen Wilson's and a woman with a nose like Lake Bell's have produced two (two) children with entirely normal, cute little button-noses? Really, mate? Really? *1
Yes, wading into 2015's cinematic waters with the political subtlety of a toddler with a claw-hammer comes John Erick Dowdle's No Escape (spoiler: they escape), in which the aforementioned Wilson and Bell play Jack and Annie Dwyer, a couple who have relocated with their young daughters to an Unspecified Southeast Asian Country™ because of Plot Reasons™ the day before a fully military coup sees a furious mob executing caucasians and their sympathisers because of Plot Reasons™. One things for sure, after the first shots are fired, all bets are off and there can be No Escape! (spoiler: they escape)
As you can probably tell by now, I didn't take this film too seriously. Luckily, No Escape (spoiler: they escape) takes itself so seriously that the audience doesn't have to. It's tightly filmed, and the tension is certainly there throughout, but a walk around Sainsbury's would seem this nerve-wracking if you filmed it in near constant close-up with hand-held cameras. Credit where it's due, the film is certainly well acted, yet the Dwyer family are never more than generic placeholder characters who the audience is meant to relate to purely because of their situation, rather than any character-building which has taken place. Pierce Brosnan is also along for the ride doing his best Ralph Brown, complete with an accent which he maintains 85% of the time.
But as much as The Good Guys™ are pencilled in, The Bad Guys™ fare even worse, and the subplot plot about Western international utility companies encroaching on foreign territories feels like a socio-economic version of white guilt, even though it's a version which doesn't attempt to sympathise with its revolutionaries in any way or even adequately explain the link between foreign ownership of the water company and a group prepared to assassinate the actual president of the actual country*2 (a point which isn't touched upon again after the opening scene in which it happens).
The real problem is that No Escape (spoiler: they escape) can't quite commit to its ultra-realistic style. For all the running, sweating and point-blank gunshots, the screenplay deliberately doesn't name the country it takes place in. Ostensibly an "unknown Southeast Asian" country, since the climax of the film shows that it shares a border with Vietnam, it can only be Cambodia, China or Laos. One school of thought dictates that there was probably a considerable amount of money from the Far East in the funding of the film, so it was thought wisest not to point fingers needlessly. But the thought also lurks at the back of your mind that the screenwriters are saying "oh, it could be any of those, they're all the same aren't they, one step away from revolution at any moment?". I'm sure that second reason's not the case, of course. I'm as absolutely sure of that as I am that for the characters is this film, there is No Escape (spoiler: they escape).
Imagine Die Hard where the building is a city, there's no John McClane, and the terrorists' seem weirdly underexplained. Now imagine that in a week's time that version of Die Hard will be on in the cinema, in three months' time it'll be out on DVD, in six months' time it'll be less than a fiver and then you'll never hear from it again.
That's No Escape (spoiler: they escape).
Not particularly.
Telly. Sunday evening.
Well it's competent enough, yet completely unmemorable.
Oh, probably.
I will look at you blankly as I struggle to remember it myself.
Not that I heard. I suppose the film-makers didn't want to puncture The Realism™.
No Escape features Pierce Brosnan, who made an appearance in The World's End, and Lake Bell who starred in Man Up, both of which were vehicles for Simon 'Dengar in The Clone Wars' Pegg.
*1 Hey, don't get me wrong, I actually love the noses on both of them, my own hooter isn't exactly nondescript, and I know they develop as people move through adolescence (see point two on this list), but the kids might as well be ginger for all the sense it makes in this film…
*2 For viewers in the UK, this would roughly equivalent to the EDL assassinating David Cameron because nPower is owned by a German company. And as ridiculous as that comparison sounds, I imagine its presence in this post is going to generate inadvertent page-hits for some time to come...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Man Up Cert: 15 / 88 mins / Dir. Ben Palmer / Trailer
It's not often that I'm enthusiastic about seeing a rom-com with Simon Pegg in it, since his film career outside of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy has been patchy at best. But the trailer for Ben Palmer's Man Up hinted at something more than 'Hector And The Search For A Patronising Screenplay', largely because Pegg doesn't play the lead character. A central character, certainly, but not the lead. That's an important distinction to make because Man Up really isn't his film; it belongs firmly to Lake Bell as Nancy, a 30-something singleton who's faintly neurotic about being left on the shelf, but not to the point where she won't actively avoid social situations because her fear of making an idiot of herself is even greater. A bit like Bridget Jones, but relatable to everybody.
That said, while Bell lifts the film above the ordinary rom-com (with a flawless accent, it has to be noted), it's something she can only do with Pegg as her support and foil. His character of Jack is more than just the film's telegraphed happy-ending, and in terms of character development, it's Pegg that gets the heavy-lifting. Together, Lake Bell and Simon Pegg are quite fantastic in an astonishingly average film. The supporting cast of much-loved Brit actors all pull their weight, although it often feels like they're over-egging things a little. That said, the film scores bonus points for Rory Kinnear deftly stealing every scene he's in as quietly-obsessive stalker Sean.
All in all, a far better film than it has any right to be.
While it's not exactly breaking the mould of the romantic-comedy, Man Up left me pleasantly surprised, demonstrating that a twee, one-track story can still be touching, likeable and - most importantly - funny.
Come for the farce, stay for the Whitesnake on the soundtrack.
As much as I enjoyed it, probably not.
It's a Sunday-night DVD, although you can probably get away with a rental.
I haven't seen Lake Bell's earlier work, but this is certainly one of Pegg's better non-Cornetto roles, yes.
I think it does, although it's best to remember that it's never trying to be anytning more than an amiable rom-com.
Nope.
Nope.
Man Up stars none other than the perennial prequel-basher himself, Simon Pegg, who voice-starred in the prequel-era animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars as fearsome ESB bounty hunter Dengar, who falls off a moving train during a light scuffle, rubs his head comedically and says "Ah, poodoo!" in a broad Cockney accent.
I wish I was making that up.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
