“The Boss Baby”

LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

“The Boss Baby” is told from the point of view of a child with an overactive imagination, a plot point that still doesn’t fully excuse the lame story of a cutthroat business minded infant who never ages because he swills a special formula that keeps his cheeks chubby and his kewpie eyes freakishly large. The movie is sentimental but no overly so and has a teaching lesson that focuses on sibling rivalry, but it’s mostly one-note and tedious, an endless procession of butt jokes and tired sight gags.

There’s some decent voice work here from Alec Baldwin as the boss baby and Miles Bakshi as his older brother Tim, although both actors started to grate on my nerves more quickly than they should have. The plot doesn’t really matter much, but I really hated the film’s notion that puppies are nothing more than a cute accessory. The story implies that pets in general are fully disposable, which is not a great message to be teaching children. The quality of the animation is high and there are a couple of truly inspired and funny jokes, but they are lost in the lazy and generic storytelling. The film’s formula is this: when the story starts to lag, just show a cute animated baby bottom and let the “awww, shucks” laughs ensue.

This is a really dumb idea for a movie (and get ready because the ending sets the stupid thing up for an inevitable sequel), but even if you turn off your rational brain and simply ride along with the film’s reality, it’s still not interesting enough nor fun enough to have much of an impact.