The Boss Baby is a DreamWorks computer animated comedy film based on the children’s picture book of the same name by Marla Frazee, it’s written by Michael McCullers and directed by Tom McGrath. The story, if you could even refer to it as that, is about a baby sent from heaven to infiltrate a family for some reason because there’s a war between babies and puppies for the unconditional love of adults due to their cuteness and the puppies are winning, what am I doing with my life!? The voice actors include Alec Baldwin (remember when he wanted to play himself in Team America and they wouldn’t let him?), Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy Kimmel (he gives me the creeps), Steve Buscemi (half diamond/half dog shit) and Tobey Maguire.
As a children’s film The Boss Baby might be sufficient, it’s colourful and there’s sounds and stuff, it might lull a toddler to sleep and it’s easy enough to sit through if you’re an adult but I can’t help but feel like no one put any effort into this film at all except maybe the animators. As I described the entire premise is pathetic and there’s absolutely no depth to it at all, what you see is it what you get and you don’t get much, it’s not like there’s a little something for the kids and a little something for the parents, there’s nothing for anyone really, there’s nothing to be invested in, it’s cheap surface level humour and a poorly written story that goes nowhere.
As far as the voice actors, they needn’t have bothered with the celebrities they went with, it didn’t make much of a difference, it’s not like it mattered that Lisa Kudrow’s voice was in this film, I didn’t even recognise any of them until I looked it up afterwards, except maybe Alec Baldwin, if they’d went with unknown actors the film would have still had the same impact is my point. The animation was fine I suppose but it’s all been done before, there’s not much in the way of originality here, Toy Story already did it all and they did it with an actual story that had depth and memorable characters you were invested in, Woody, Buzz, Andy, Mr Potato Head etc. Who the fuck’s gonna remember Tim?
The fact that it’s based on a picture book makes sense, the premise might work in the picture book format because it’s spread so fucking thin across the whole film and there’s nothing witty or intelligent about it, it’s only an hour and a half but it felt longer than that and after the first 20/30 minutes it begins to drag. There’s an intrigue as to what’s going on when this baby turns up and clearly isn’t acting as a baby would but when it’s established that he’s not a baby and it’s Alec Baldwin sent from heaven for this puppy story I switched off. It’s not completely terrible, it’s just very mediocre and extremely forgettable, there’s a couple moments that made me chuckle but all in all it’s not that funny either.
The Boss Baby could have been a cute little film had it just been a metaphor but as an hour and a half experience it’s just not worth your time, if you’re looking for something to watch with the kids I’d recommend something with a little more respect for its audience, something with wit and emotion, at best The Boss Baby is okay but life’s too short for okay and there’s nothing more to be gained here, I’m gonna have to advise you to give it a miss and maybe watch The Incredibles, Up or the Toy Story trilogy instead. I’m gonna give The Boss Baby 5.3/10 and as I wrap this review up it’s already fading from my memory, and… gone!
What’s your favourite animated kid’s film?