Illumination Entertainment’s featherlight The Secret Life of Pets will surely entertain families. The vibrant animals and the large-scale chases will delight youngsters, and adults – who may already be prepared to count down the minutes – will find strange gratification from hearing R-rated comedians lend their vocals to cute animals.
Only Pixar could find a way to reevaluate quirky comic relief as a poignant study on mental and physical disabilities. Academy Award winning writer/director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL·E) along with co-director/writer Angus MacLane (in her feature-length debut after developing her filmmaking through Toy Story short films) have developed a faithful sequel while also identifying a message that has been treaded cautiously in the past.
A little girl (Mackenzie Foy) is strictly structured by her all-business, all the time mom (Rachel McAdams). It’s summer time, and instead of playing she is to spend her days studying so she can impress her authorities at her oveestigious academy school, so she can get into a prestigious high school, so she can get into a prestigious university, so she can spend her adult life working hard and forcing her children to do the…