In 2019, The Secret Life of Pets had a successor. This new installment introduced new characters, new personalities to some of the first movie’s characters, and new adventures. The Secret Life of Pets 2 had a larger budget than its predecessor, and its box office was successful. However, compared to its predecessor’s performance, it can be concluded that the second installment did not do that well.
Below, we will analyze three reasons why we think The Secret Life of Pets 2 did not fare well against the first installment.
The baby is so random and was not seen much
At the beginning of the film, Katie and her dogs are in the park, where Max states that he does not like being around kids because they are so naughty, noisy, and all that. On their way home from the park, Katie met a guy named Chuck, whom she would marry and get pregnant with a boy named Liam.
The turn of events here was just too fast. It went from Katie helping a guy who had an accident to Katie having a child with the very same man. Due to this, it appeared that the main reason why Liam came to the story was to make Max’s life a bit miserable just because he said he did not like kids in the beginning.
The only appearance Liam made was when he acted “wildly” with the dogs in his toddler years and was about to enter kindergarten in the end. He was also seen with a cage somewhere in the middle, which is weird because, in real life, one would find a kid outside a cage, while a dog was inside it. But for some reason, Katie decided to switch things around.
There were three simultaneous stories, one of which contributed little to the actual plot
Remember Peanuts Movie, where, apart from the actual story where Charlie Brown tried to be noticed by his crush, there was another story, written by Snoopy, where he fought against The Red Baron? Well, The Secret Life of Pets 2 also had the same type of trope, and it was also a “saving” story!
Snowball, who strongly hated humans in the previous film, now loved humans very much. So much so that he adopted the “superhero” lifestyle that his owner seemed to enjoy. One day, a random Shih Tzu approached Snowball because she saw a tiger caged by a circus owner. Feeling superhero, Snowball accepted the call and went on to rescue the tiger.
The movie then tried to show three different stories at once – the first would be the “original plot” with Max and Duke on the farm. The second would be this rescue mission of the tiger, and the third would be Gidget practicing to be a cat to retrieve a toy that had fallen into the room of a cat lady who had hundreds of cats.
The first movie had a consistent plot – it was about Max trying to get rid of Duke but ended up loving him anyway. This movie had three plots, with the one that sounded unrelated, only getting connected in the near end, and the connection did not seem that natural.
The story does not sound more like a “secret life” anymore
The first movie became so successful because it stuck to the message it was trying to convey in the title. The term “secret life” was so unique. It invoked something that your pets could have been doing when you were not looking at them. You would not expect that maybe your dog would be involved in some shenanigans with Animal Control Agencies or your bird to team up and carry another dog on its back.
The essence of the “secret life” was lost in the second movie, and what the pets were doing was falling into what was considered to be something that the humans could think of their pets to be doing. For example, a dog guarding its sheep, or a cat being distracted by lasers.
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