Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

Although I did watch several episodes of Star Trek, I’m running short on time to review them, so I’ll get to them at a later date. Until then, here’s the lone film I caught this past weekend:

The Secret Life of Pets

One of the most underrated animated productions in history comes from Illumination Entertainment. The unfairly ignored (awards-wise) Despicable Me was one of the sweetest, most humanistic animated films outside of the Disney/Pixar universe. While The Secret Life of Pets can’t hold a candle to that film, it has some generically sweet and beautiful moments, just not enough to sustain its admittedly short 90 minutes.

Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) is the pet to a wonderful human (Ellie Kemper) who dotes on him and shares sweet moments together. When she decides to bring home a rescue dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet), their delicate balance is threatened and through a series of mishaps, Max and Duke end up lost in the sewers of New York where they meet unsavory discarded pets and become the subjects of a doghunt led by one of his neighbors, Gidget (Jenny Slate).

There are myriad adventures the pets all get into, few of which are terribly original. There are some cute moments along the way, but the plot is relatively thin and the emotional moments reside entirely in the viewer who must appreciate the bond between an owner and a pet to get to that point as the story doesn’t do it very well.

Voicing these wonderful pets, Louis C.K. leads a spirited bunch with strong performances mixed in with weaker ones. Louis C.K., Jenny Slate, Albert Brooks as the treacherous hawk Tiberius, and Lake Bell as the overweight cat Chloe are the clear standouts. Stonestreet fades harmlessly into the background, ceding too much dominance to Louis C.K. while Kevin Hart overplays his role as the fluffy bunny with a vindictive streak.

It will be perfectly pleasing to children and adults will be amused by much of the humor. There are some incredibly great comedic moments, most of them involving Chloe, but the film feels like a string funny skits strung together into a feature-length product. By the time we get to the end, we haven’t necessarily formed a strong attachment to the characters, but pet lovers will no doubt identify with and appreciate the conclusion.