Review of The Boss Baby (2017) by Nick C — 19 Jun 2017

Yes, here it is, the much-anticipated Boss Baby, and what do I have to say? Honestly, not as bad as I thought it would be. As if you don't already know this, the film stars Alec Baldwin as the baby himself, who is an above average baby who works for Baby Co. and is on a mission to thwart the ever-growing love for puppies. To do this, he plants himself in a normal family, where Tim (Miles Christopher Bakshi) is an only child. The baby sucks up all of his parents' love, much to his dismay, which I guess draws parallels with the dog-vs.-baby situation.

Some things that impressed me right off the bat were some "imagination sequences" (I guess you could call them), where Tim envisions himself fighting gorillas in the Congo, swimming from sharks in the deep waters of his bathtub, and going head-to-head with pirates on the high seas. These sequences are done in a traditional animation style rather then 3-D computer animation, and are both beautiful and a celebration of the imagination of children. I loved these sequences, and the art direction in this film is great throughout with many neat visual tricks that the animators use.

Alec Baldwin is fairly funny as the baby as well; even if the jokes are far and few between, the ones he does deliver are usually good. In addition to that, the relationship between Tim and the baby develops nicely; I believed every step of it was natural rather than forced, as in so many kid's movies these days. It was an endearing message too, for the big brother to grow to love his new baby brother, despite all the attention he gets.

But unfortunately, despite these nice attributes, this is not a good movie, and I can sum up the film's greatest problem in one word: plot. The plot makes absolutely no sense, and feels lazily strung together with no real order or direction. They take the first, maybe, thirty or forty minutes developing the kid and the baby, and then jump right into the main plot rather abruptly, to the point that ten minutes after they're annoyed at each other over having to wear an embarrassing costume or something, they have to save their parents from the evil CEO of Puppy Co. A lot of kid's movies have bad plots, but this one may be the worst I've seen. It doesn't make any sense, it's very abrupt, it's rushed, it's way too complex for a kid's movie despite having no logic or reason whatsoever, and finally, it is very lazily written. It feels like four different people were all in a rush, took ten minutes to write it, and then mashed what they all had written together.

Because of this, you still feel unsatisfied walking out of it, despite its humorous moments and inventive visuals. The movie as a whole feels sloppy and weird, lazy and rushed, and because of that, I can't very well give it a positive review. Which is too bad, because if you see the movie, you will see what I'm talking about with the visuals. They are very creative. If only the rest of the movie could have been so creative.

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Rating: 2.5/4.