Caution: mild spoilers
“The Secret Life of Pets 2,” directed by Chris Renaud, is a PG adventure-comedy movie that I extremely recommend for a family movie night.
The sequel has the same characters as the first movie, but viewers do not need to see the first film to understand the basis of this movie. There are a few new characters introduced in “Pets 2” that are just as cute and funny as the original characters. All of the characters have different goals and different things that motivate them. For Snowball, a cute and fearless bunny, it is his owner that he idolizes. As for Gidget, it is her admiration for Max, a terrier.
This movie sees Max go from “ordinary pet” to becoming the (helicopter) protector of his owner’s child. This transformation happens when Max’s owner has a new child after getting married. It takes a while, but he comes to care for the baby as if it were his own. And, as a few years pass by, he begins to have more concerns and stresses for the kid’s safety.
There are instances throughout “Pets 2” that show Max’s overprotection of the child. Max has his animal friends keep posts of where the little kid is when he leaves their apartment building. On walks, he freaks out if the kid goes too far ahead. Max is completely scared for him because the world from Max’s point of view is that the world is only dangerous.
Max begins to see that there is more to the world besides danger while on vacation in the countryside. He discovers what it means to be brave with the help of some other furry friends and eventually sees the world through a new perspective; the world is an adventure.
With this new perspective, Max learns to live a little and begins to inspire his owner’s child. Everything intertwines by the end.
As the movie features Max’s journey, the story also includes entertaining and silly moments. The movie includes hilarious clips that will make anyone laugh out loud because I know I certainly did. It is a cute film that I enjoyed (even as a teenager) and honestly made me want to hug my dogs at home. Most sequels do not live up to their former, but this one sure does.