The Secret Life of Pets 2 Blu-ray Review – Loads of Ultra-cute Extras!

By: Lynn Barker

Cute terrier Max’s (voice of Patton Oswalt) life changes in The Secret Life of Pets 2 when his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) gets married and has a baby. Max becomes an overprotective, nervous wreck. On a family trip to the countryside, Max meets confident farm dog Rooster (Harrison Ford) who helps him overcome his fears. Meanwhile, in the city, doggie Gidget (Jenny Slate) needs to reclaim Max's fave toy from a cat-infested apartment and bunny Snowball meets new canine friend Daisy (Tiffany Haddish) and goes into superhero mode on a mission to free Hu, a white tiger cub, from a circus.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 Trailer

Family Additions

Sweet terrier Max freaked in the first “Pets” movie when owner Katie brought home huge shaggy pooch Duke (Eric Stonestreet). Now the two are best buds but their world is rocked when Katie marries Chuck (Pete Holmes) and has baby Liam. At first Max feels displaced but later, he thinks little Liam is “his” kid and is overprotective to the point of scratching nervously. Sensing that the family needs a vacation, Katie and Chuck take the dogs and baby to visit a country uncle but Max is even more freaked when an aggressive turkey chases him and he and Duke have to sleep outside.

Max and Duke love playing with baby LiamCourtesy of Universal Studios

Meanwhile, in the City

Max asks fluffy Pomeranian Gidget to watch over his fave squeaky toy Busy Bee while he is gone to the country. Of course she loses it and it bounces into the apartment of a crazy, over-stocked cat lady. How can Gidget enter cat central, get the toy back and not be mauled? Meanwhile, bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart) loves being dressed by owner Molly as a superhero and when he gets a “rep” for aiding animals in trouble, Shih Tzu Daisy (Tiffany Haddish) asks him to help her rescue Hu, a white tiger cub, from evil circus owner Sergei (Nick Kroll).

Snowball and Daisy make a good teamCourtesy of Universal Studios

Adventures Galore!

Rooster, a farm dog, realizes Max is afraid of everything while affable Duke fits in fine. When Duke accidentally frees sheep from their pen and lamb Cotton wanders off, Rooster insists that Max accompany him to find and return the lamb.

Rooster knows Max has a lot to learn

Max is terrified but finds the courage to risk his life to rescue the endangered sheep. In the city, Snowball and Daisy see tiger Hu abused by the circus owner and have to brave scary wolf guards to set him free. Hu follows them so they take him to stay temporarily with elderly basset hound Pops (Dana Carvey) who is busy training puppies to be more doglike. Gidget enlists fat cat Chloe (Lake Bell) to teach her how to pose as a cat so she can infiltrate and bring Max’s toy home. She successfully enters cat lady’s apartment.

Gidget must pretend to be a catCourtesy of Universal Studios

Happy Ending?

Can Max gain enough self-confidence to be less overprotective and let little Liam grow up? Can he help his animal pals with their own dangerous missions? Will Gidget be successful in getting Max’s toy back and can Snowball, Daisy and friends avoid the guard wolves and evil Sergei to keep tiger Hu safe?

Max warms up to rescued tiger HuCourtesy of Universal Studios

Special Extra Features

There are soooo many extras on this Blu-ray-DVD/Digital set. Many are interactive so that you can participate. Others are just informative or downright cute.

• 2 Mini-Movies – Super Gidget features the fluffy pup in costume as she rescues Max from squirrels and a Super Flea! Minion Scouts features your fave yellow guys as they try to earn Scout badges.. hilarious.
• The Making of the Mini-Movies breaks down the stories as filmmakers give us details.
• Deleted Scenes- four short ones in various stages of animation. All are sweet.
• A Tapestry of a Tail – The Making Of- presents filmmakers and voice actors on keeping the three storylines going and coming together at the end. We see that real pets roam the halls of the Paris animation studios.

Chloe gifts her owner with a hairballCourtesy of Universal Studios

• How to Draw – gives us the Head of the Story Dept. showing us step-by-step how to draw Max, Snowball and Chloe with real animals “judging” him. Fun! I love these drawing extras.
• Frame By Frame-How to Make a Flip-Book is more coaching on drawing an entire little book you can flip through as the character moves. Really neat to know!
• Character Pods presents each voice actor as he or she describes his or her character. This is quite cute.
• My Buddy and Me brings on the personal pets as actors and filmmakers introduce their own pets and talk about preferring dogs or cats, naming pets, talking to them etc. Awww.
• The Further Adventures of Captain Snowball are interactive stories that you direct by the choices you make.. done in more crude animation but entertaining.

Captain Snowball to the rescueCourtesy of Universal Studios

• Pets with Jobs is a documentary featuring real life animals; police dogs, massage goats, therapy ponies, service dogs.. Really wonderful to learn more about the animals who aid humans in so many ways.
• A Party Fit for a Pet shows us how to make food, favors and costumes for a pet party.
• Relax the Cat: The Secret Life of Pets Massage is silly fun as voice actors for Pops, Chloe and pug Mel learn how to actually massage pets to relax and mellow them out. Super funny.
• Pops’ Puppy Training School with Kevin Hart is a kind of silly/useless lesson on training or failing to train dogs.
• Production Pets is a series of still pictures of cast and crew pets. There are 100’s of them!
• Two Lyric Videos are short music videos with words on screen.

Wrapping Up

As we said when we reviewed the film in theaters, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a fast-paced and funny animated adventure still answering the question…I wonder what my pet is doing and thinking while I’m not watching? A worthy theme of conquering fear runs through the three stories presented but it’s a lot to stuff into one film and sometimes jarring to jump from one story to the other.

Lake Bell voices kitty Chloe

This Blu-ray/DVD/Digital pack is loaded with more extras than we’ve seen lately. Many are interactive so that you can learn to do something or just enjoy making/creating. The documentary on cool service animals is very watchable and there are funny and entertaining extras featuring the voice actors and pets, pets, pets.

Tiffany Haddish voices feisty Daisy

Since this home entertainment package looks and sounds great and doesn’t skimp on the extras, we can award a full five stars. Great for collecting and/or gifting.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 Blu-ray Rating: 

Courtesy of Universal Studios

The Secret Life of Pets 2 is available to buy now!

Talk Home Video and Pets!  

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