It has been a while since I talked about a 3D animated movie, but The Secret Life of Pets is one film that definitely deserves the attention.
BY TATTIRA ZWINOIRA
Even the box office results of the film’s debut do not disagree with me.
According to Box Office Mojo, The Secret Life of Pets opened to an outstanding $104,35 million over the past weekend in the United States and currently sits on $142,19 million and a global haul of $186,96 million as of Wednesday. Oh, did I forget to mention this box office haul is on an estimated production budget of $75 million!
When I watched the trailer of the film some months ago, the premise was what told me it was going to be a hit and even in my last review, I knew it was going to be big, but I did not expect it to reach these levels.
The premise of “do you know what your pet gets up to when you are a way” was a good way of pricking the interest of movie goers. Also, most adults have pets, so in putting such a premise, the 3D animated film managed to attract an older audience to watch it.
The story centres around Max (voiced by Louis CK), a spoiled terrier who enjoys a comfortable life in a New York building until his owner adopts Duke (voice by Eric Stonestreet), a giant and unruly canine. Duke, threatens Max’s life as the favourite pet to owner Katie (voiced by Ellie Kemper), which leads him to conjure hilarious ways to get rid of him.
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However, during Max’s and Duke’s walk outside, they encounter a group of ferocious alley cats and wind up in a truck that is bound for the pound. Luckily, a rebellious bunny named Snowball (voiced by Kevin Hart) swoops in to save the doggy duo from captivity. In exchange, Snowball demands that Max and Duke join his gang of abandoned pets on a mission against the humans who have done them wrong.
What made this film a success is not only its moral, which is to treat your animals with love and kindness, but also to always be humble and accepting of others. Not to mention the humour; although designed for a younger audience, it managed to capture adult’s attention as well.
When making a 3D animation, it is always important to put humour that also reaches an older audience in order to boost the box office revenue. To me, this movie was actually more relatable and funnier than Finding Dory.
International critic website, Rotten Tomatoes, gave the movie a 74% rating and the fan response has been equally agreeable to the film. The movie’s success saw Finding Dory falling to third position on the list, but has managed to surpass Captain America: Civil War to be the biggest grossing film in the United States. As of Wednesday, the Finding Dory’s box office haul in the United States was $431,86 million and sits on a global haul of $653,67 million.
As I stated in my last review, The Legend of Tarzan is outperforming critics and has managed to get a second place finish and currently sits on a box office take of $89,82 million and $145,82 million in the United States and global box office receipts respectively as of Wednesday.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates debuted last weekend that tells the story of how two brothers posted a hilarious advert on Craigs List looking for dates to a relative’s wedding. However, the film version deviates from real life events in that the dates they end up taking up being a pair of crazy nut jobs that rival the brother’s own crazy antics in a funny but not memorable film.
The film stars Zac Efron and Adam DeVine as brothers Dave and Mike Stangle respectively while their female counterparts are played by Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza, who play Alice and Tatiana.
The film is quickly fading, however, although being a step for Efron who has not found any meaningful success since the High School Musical franchise.
Going into this weekend, we will see the release of a reboot of film favourite Ghostbusters, that has been rebooted to have an all led-female cast, starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mckinnon, and Leslie Jones as the new team. The new team are set to face new ghost threats in New York city in a movie, according to “critics”, that is expected not to perform well.
But, having watched many Melissa McCarthy films, I have never been one to bet against her at the box office.
