FEATURED FILM
Film Review
The Boss Baby (PG)
Written By Amy Diaz(adiaz@hippopress.com)
Images: Movie Screenshot
Alec Baldwin is more Jack Donaghy than Donald Trump in the surprisingly fun animated movie The Boss Baby from DreamWorks Animation.
Tim (Miles Bakshi in his kid voice, Tobey Maguire in his adult narrator voice) is horrified by the arrival of the Boss Baby, the Baldwin-voiced suit-wearing adorable tyrant who takes over the house and soaks up all of his parents’ — Dad’s (Jimmy Kimmel) and Mom’s (Lisa Kudrow) — time and, Tim fears, love. But the Boss Baby is just on assignment from Baby Corp. to attempt to infiltrate Puppy Co., the company where Tim’s parents work. Babies are apparently losing ground in the “love” metric to puppies, and Baby Corp. fears that a new product launch by Puppy Co. could knock them out of the market permanently. Boss Baby must stop that product launch to save his beloved company and earn a much-longed-for promotion to a corner office with a glass-tabled high chair and a golden potty of his very own. Eventually, Boss Baby and Tim decide to work together, as Boss Baby’s promotion (and therefore departure from the household) is the only way to ensure that Tim will get his parents’ attention entirely back on him.
Or, to put it another way, Tim is scared and sad at losing his only-child status and is at odds with the natural tyrant that is any newborn baby, but slowly he learns how to live with this new housemate.
Perhaps this is because I expected this movie to be a chore or perhaps because I’ve been worn down by the tiny bosses who demand my constant attention, I was unexpectedly charmed by The Boss Baby. The movie delivers in its introduction the basic premise that Tim is a kid with a lively imagination — both during play and, we suspect, in how he deals with the world. The movie does a surprisingly good job of balancing these elements — this fanciful story of a baby corporation with baby executive-level management and the emotional reality behind Tim’s adventure. This isn’t quite Pixar-level development and execution of a theme, but it is solid throughout and the movie really holds together the different parts of what it’s doing.
My one quibble with The Boss Baby is that I can’t really figure out who this is for. I feel like much of it would sail well over the head of my young-elementary-aged movie-watcher but might approach too-young-for by late elementary. What I most enjoyed about it was Baldwin’s character, specifically his 30 Rock-CEO-like blend of Successories affirmations-style optimism and, well, baby-like selfishness. I’m not sure what aged kid will be all about that but perhaps the colorful scenes of imagined adventures and the baby-based goofy humor could be enough to entertain the intended audience.