Tuesday, March 19, 2024

“THE BOSS BABY”

THE STORY – A new baby’s arrival impacts a family, told from the point of view of a delightfully unreliable narrator — a wildly imaginative 7-year-old named Tim. The most unusual Boss Baby (Alec Baldwin) arrives at Tim’s home in a taxi, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. The instant sibling rivalry must soon be put aside when Tim discovers that Boss Baby is actually a spy on a secret mission, and only he can help thwart a dastardly plot that involves an epic battle between puppies and babies.

THE CAST Alec Baldwin, Miles Bakshi, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel & Lisa Kudrow

THE TEAM – Tom McGrath (Director) & Michael McCullers (Writer)
​
THE RUNNING TIME – 
97 Minutes


3/20/17
​By Ben Scanga

​”The Boss Baby” is a movie I really dreaded seeing. Dreamworks has given me no reason to care about a single project they have done in over ten years. I didn’t want to spend $14 on yet another unoriginal and obnoxious movie, but I didn’t want to have the go to either the extremely late or early showtimes so I don’t have to sit through the entire runtime with children crying, screaming and running around the entire time. Either way, I think my enjoyment would have been the same because this is almost as bad as last year’s “Trolls”.

“The Boss Baby” follows seven-year-old, Tim, who has a seemingly perfect life, at least that is how he describes it. His parents devote all of their attention to him and he gets away with mostly anything until Tim’s new baby brother arrives with a plan. You see, his new baby brother is a walking-talking business man with a plan to save babies, making them remain the “cutest” because a new kind of puppy has been “made” (Yes, being made) to stop babies from being the most adorable creatures around.

There is very little that I enjoyed about “The Boss Baby” but I suppose one positive takeaway is that the animation isn’t awful? It’s not very good but at least it is competent enough to be visually interesting at times. For the most part, it’s mostly animations of people talking but when there are these big spectacles (Like the climax of the third act for example) it gets semi-interesting. I think it’s mostly confusing ambition with “throw as many ideas at the screen as you possibly can” which would explain why so much is thrown into the movie that is either used as plot conveniences/devices that are never brought up again or just for a stupid joke. For example, Tim and his baby brother (I’m saying baby brother all the time because he never gets a name throughout the entire movie) ride in a limousine with a bachelorette party, and on the way out of the limousine, Tim throws away a drink and then later goes on to say “Ew, the people of Long Island definitely don’t know how to make an Iced Tea!” I’m not even going to go into when they took hallucinogenic drugs.

“The Boss Baby” attempts to do the exact thing that “Storks” did. It tries to show that family is important and teamwork can conquer anything. See what I mean by “unoriginal and obnoxious?” Not only in “Storks” but almost every single animated movie I’ve seen as of late has the same message that has been released within the past year. Sure, you get the those hidden gems like “Kubo and The Two Strings“… That’s about it. You also have the ones that try but come off as too obnoxiously blunt like “Zootopia” but aside from that “Sing,” “The Angry Birds Movie,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Monster Trucks” all have the same message of teamwork that is always presented in the exact same way. The reason “Anomalisa” was my favorite animated movie of 2015 was because of how different it was. Aside from being perfect on almost every other level, its overall message is about how depression can ruin you and any positive relationship you ever build. I am in no way implying that “The Boss Baby” should have contained these kinds of adult themes but if you are heavily implying underage drug and alcohol use, you can at least do something a little different than “family is the best!” and follow the exact same generic formula.

“The Boss Baby” is a movie that made me physically angry to sit through. It made me cringe, it made me roll my eyes and I wanted to leave so many times. The fact that some of the adults in my theater were clapping at the end just goes on to show how cinema may be dying. It’s unfunny, it’s obnoxious, it doesn’t make any sense and is littered with plot holes. It is just overall, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Sorry if a baby Alec Baldwin farting out baby powder isn’t funny to me but if you see this in theaters and actually pay money, I highly doubt that outside of your kids, you’ll enjoy it. You are automatically voting with your wallet that Dreamworks was correct to release this movie. You’re making them think it’s funny, well acted, entertaining with an overall coherent narrative that ties everything up in a nice little bow by the end. It doesn’t matter if it’s a kids movie or not, if this makes money they are going to put out “The Boss Baby” 2 and if that ever happens I might as well give up.

THE FINAL SCORE

THE GOOD – Passable animation

THE BAD – Everything else. Please don’t give us a sequel to this trash.
​
THE OSCARS – Best Animated Feature (Nominated)

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