‘Secret Life of Pets’ gets to the bottom of an eternal mystery

Don’t roll over for something like The Secret Life of Pets. They’re not the at the top of the heap when it comes to animated family films, and nothing has changed with their latest misfire, The Secret Life of Pets.

For a time, it does.

However, the directors Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney seem to be quite aware of these limitations, and pack the film with so many attempts at jokes that it nearly bursts from the seams with them. Max, a terrier mix voiced stridently by Louis C.K., brings friends into his apartment to hang out when his beloved owner, Katie ( Ellie Kemper), is at work. Some of the film’s best moments occur watching Max’s behavior around her, like when he bolts upright with excitement when she walks past, collapses in disappointment when she doesn’t stop to pet him, snaps to attention when she walks past again, etc.

The two dogs immediately become rivals, competing for Katie’s affections and trying to get rid of one another. The two dogs’ bickering gets them separated from their handler at the dog park and captured by animal control, kicking off an odyssey that will take them all the way to Brooklyn and force them to cooperate to get back home.

Then she brings home another rescue pet: a mix of fur and girth named Duke (KCK’s Eric Stonestreet). Things get especially hairy when Snowball’s subterranean army-a motley crew of critters, from alligators, turtles and snakes to cats, a tattooed pig and “Sea Monkeys”-turns against them when they find out they’re really “domesticated” and not truly “liberated”.

That is not a metaphor. Well, at least not entirely. They are led by the adorable fluffy bunny despot Snowball, voiced hilariously by Kevin Hart, spouting street gangster rebellion rhetoric while flashing cute, huge rabbit eyes that will give you whiplash from the cognitive dissonance. But the filmmakers and the chattering Hart overplay it as if they hold sole rights to Snowball’s merchandising profits. Max and Duke immediately get sideways of the gang and have to flee for their lives. Gidget asks help from the unlikeliest places, such as Tiberius (Albert Brooks), a predatory hawk, and Pops (Dana Carvey), a limping Bassett Hound. Whether you own a pet or not, this is often a delightful bit of animation, with jokes that hit both for adults and children.

At times, it has flashed a great ability to create smart and emotionally charged animated movies.

In between silly physical comedy gags meant for the kids, “The Secret Life of Pets” engages in genuinely insightful humor regarding human life from the perspective of our animals. There are still some laughs, and the animals are cute.

“That dog’s like, ‘It’s way too cold for this, ‘” Hart said, about a dog in the snow. Mostly sleep, probably. Unless you have a Bad Dog or a Bad Cat, in which case the torn-up sofas and puddles of vomit you return to are already pulling back the curtain of mystery on their daily doings.

The short “Mower Minions” that precedes “Pets” is funnier than the full-length “Minions” from a year ago. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: twitter.com/goodyk.