The Boss Baby

This review may contain spoilers!

If you're coming to this film for the plot or Alec Baldwin you'll be disappointed, but if you're coming for one hell of a good message then this is worth a watch. I would give The Boss Baby a 6.5/10.

This film wouldn't work if it wasn't revealed that the entire narrative was a story constructed by one of the protagonists of this film as an adult, his message about what it means to be a family and the bond that form between two siblings is very sweet and quite a touching sentiment. I also found myself really interested in the bond that was steadily developing between Tim and Boss Baby as the film went along; the more BB came to see what a family looked like the more heart this film gained. This really all came together when Tim sent Boss Baby a really touching 'memo' promising him his love if he'd come be his brother, sparking a bond that the film really thrived upon.

Steve Buscemi, who voiced Francis Francis, made what could have been a twisted throwaway antagonist kinda interesting; the way Buscemi presented his character's backstory made quite an obvious twist actually quite fun to listen to and watch play out. Miles Christopher Bakshi, who voiced Tim, did a pretty solid job as the charismatic and relatable protagonist; all his work in this film really led to that amazing line delivery in the big 'memo' scene that is by far the best part of the feature. ViviAnn Yee, Eric Bell Jr. and David Soren, who voiced Staci, the Triplets and Jimbo respectively, were some of the most entertaining supporting characters of the feature; the way each of these characters had a rather mature quality that contrasted their infantile nature was pretty funny.

However the best performance came from James McGrath, who voiced Wizzie. Admittedly it's a weird pick to say this rather minor supporting role was by far the best but in some ways I picked this character because McGrath got me laughing; it was nice to genuinely respond to one of these characters. McGrath parodied the Gandalf persona very well and then built on this to create a role that completely crazy and rather unpredictable. He also had a nice back and forth going on with Bakshi, this chemistry was weirdly rather therapeutic for the Tim character. At the end of the day I picked McGrath's performance because I don't think even Ian McKellan could have done as good a job voicing a barmy wizard.

This film kicks off by establishing that the kid spends time in an imaginary world a lot which is quite different from the world where the main plot is going on presumably, however because the main story is so out there you are constantly questioning what is actually fact in the film making it hard to connect with the story. It doesn't help that the idea of the classic family lifestyle and this big friendly corporate entity founded on cuteness are blended together in such a sloppy way, the content is actually pretty dull and you struggle to find a moment to laugh at. The narration used throughout the film comes at infrequent points making it a rather redundant quality sadly. I also felt like The Boss Baby is a good example of a film using too many references from other films in a negative way, the references rarely added anything and it felt like an easy way the writers had chanced upon to take up screen time. The animation looked pretty bad; the backgrounds were indistinctive, the characters all had a rather similar basic design and the imagination sequences were a big step down in terms of style. The soundtrack for the film felt so dated and poorly picked, I got bored listening to the music of the film which really let several scenes down.

Alec Baldwin, who voiced Boss Baby, was a pretty bland performance considering he was the title character of the film; if you want to see what Baldwin's most entertaining lines were you may as well just watch the Boss Baby trailers rather than waste your time watching the film. Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow, who voiced Dad and Mom respectively, were very basic stock performances of parental figures; frankly the voice work done by these two was so basic it could have been performed by anyone. Tobey Maguire, who voiced Adult Tim/Narrator, really just had a jarring presence in the film; his narration wasn't emotive or moving enough to warrant it's place in the film so it just became a waste of time.