Pomeranian Gidget ( Jenny Slate) must recover a coveted toy from a nest of cats, which means going undercover as a feline - complete with training from the aloof and seditious puss Chloe ( Lake Bell).

Meanwhile, the pets who are left behind get involved in two different rescue missions, which are even lighter on messages and heavier on humor. Parents will get that the film is contrasting different kinds of parenting, but to make it more kid-relatable, Max says that the lesson is about embracing change - even though that message doesn't exactly match up with the story. At the farm, Max - who's full of anxiety about the baby's safety - meets gruff, tough older dog Rooster ( Harrison Ford), who herds cattle with ease and isn't having any of Max's overcautiousness. This animated sequel is basically a reworking of City Slickers, but that's the beauty of making movies for kids: Old stories are all new to them. For kids, though, the main moral of the story is to face and embrace the changes life inevitably brings. Messages for parents revolve around Max's anxiety about keeping his owner's toddler safe his helicopter ways are questioned by a dog named Rooster ( Harrison Ford), who's more of a let-them-get-hurt-and-learn kind of canine. And there's a scene in which a cat is high on catnip. Language includes 'pissed,' put-downs ('jerk,' 'idiot,' 'stupid,' etc.), and potty humor ('turd'). Animals punch and throw knives at one another, and a bad guy is hit by a car, but no one is ever really injured. The dark humor and peril are toned down from the original, with more of a shift to slapstick violence that's meant to be funny.

A subplot has Snowball ( Kevin Hart) and new dog Daisy ( Tiffany Haddish) working together to rescue an abused tiger from a Russian circus that has menacing wolves and a cartoonishly villainous lion tamer. It continues the story of Max (now voiced by Patton Oswalt) as his owner gets married and has a baby. Parents need to know that The Secret Life of Pets 2 is the sequel to the 2016 animated comedy about what pets do when their humans aren't home.

Secret life of pets movie rating