The Secret Life of Kyle (2017)

Directed by: Bruno Chauffard, Glenn McCoy | 4 minutes | short film, animation | Original voice cast: Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, Pierre Coffin, Brian T. Delaney, Tara Strong

Bad guys often steal the show. Because of that, Chris Meledandri’s Illumination Entertainment built an entire animation empire. The success of the film production studio started with ‘Despicable Me’ (2010), in which the grumpy villain and anti-hero Gru slowly thaws through the intervention of three innocent but for him rather annoyingly in the way of orphans. The film grossed nearly $550 million worldwide—not to mention the revenue from the merchandise, especially the one featuring Gru’s clumsy yellow assistants the Minions. Incidentally, the Minions got their own film in 2015 (a resounding box-office success with a revenue of more than 1.1 billion – a sequel is expected in 2020); the third part of ‘Despicable Me’ was published in 2017. And each subsequent part brings in more money than its predecessor. Also ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ and ‘Sing’ (both from 2016) have been very lucrative for Illumination. The studio knows how to distinguish itself from the competition with quirky characters and appealing stories and has thus nestled nicely between Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, among others.

Like most animated films today, the DVD release of ‘Despicable Me 3’ is accompanied by a short, an animated short that serves as a warm-up for the main film. The four-minute ‘The Secret Life of Kyle’ (2017) – the title is of course a big nod to ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ – shows what Gru’s unsightly black dog (or what kind of animal is it anyway…? ) Kyle haunts when he and the girls Agnes, Edith and Margo are out the door. Kyle is quite a hot-tempered type, with razor-sharp lower teeth and a savage coat. You would expect him to argue with the first mutt he encounters. But no, Kyle turns out not to be such a bad guy (we had already seen that in the ‘Despicable Me’ movies; “never judge a book by its cover”). We discover that Kyle is daydreaming about the neighbors’ seductive poodle. But he turns out not to be the only one… To win her love, Kyle cleverly sniffs up a diamond necklace. But the question is whether she is waiting for that.

The short films of Illumination do not go nearly as deep as those of, for example, Pixar. What you see is what you get: a funny and innocent movie with a simple plot. No fuss, just funny. There is a message hidden in it – stay close to yourself, then you will go the farthest – but fortunately it is not too thick on top. Kyle is not the most charming character, but it appears to have little trouble winning our sympathy. Really hitting you, like the best Pixar shorts can, ‘The Secret Life of Kyle’ doesn’t even remotely succeed; this video is pure entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that, but the chance that we will be able to recall this video in a while is therefore minimal.