Review of The Boss Baby (2017) by Reviews F — 01 Jun 2018

I really didn't want to see this movie, I really thought it looked like trash. There are in my mind 4 types of kids movies: the ones both kids and adults can enjoy and will leave an important impact on the child, the one's that really aren't for adults but for kids they're harmless enough, the ones that lack any effort because people think hey it's a kids movie so who cares, and finally the ones that are straight up harmful for kids to watch. The Boss Baby looked like it fit firmly into that third category, not the worst, but we can do better. But I work in a classroom and we were having a movie day, and between this and The Emoji Movie (which I'd probably put in that last category) The Boss Baby wins.

Honestly though...I didn't hate it. I mean, it's a bad movie, don't get me wrong. Just in its premise it's incredibly stupid, it's surprisingly confusing, and even with all that it's still somehow manages to be unbearably predictable. Then there's the humor. Most of it's bad, really bad. Like "hey look, a butt, isn't that hilarious?" level bad. Look I'm not expecting high art from The Boss Baby, but when the jokes are quite literally at the same level of both quality and immaturity that I hear from the most immature kindergartners in my classroom, I feel like that's a problem. The first half of this movie, sucks. Straight up, it's just awful. It's a garbage movie with garbage characters and garbage plot and I hated it.

Weird thing is though, it picks up in the second half. The humor still goes for the cheap shots, but every now and then there were some genuinely funny jokes. Maybe it was because I was so used to garbage and I just wasn't expecting it, but there were a handful of moments in this movie (mostly near the end) that actually got pretty big laughs out of me. I also just like the animation in this movie. It's extremely quick and deliberate and you feel every impact made. I also liked how the boy's active imagination led to elaborate fantasy sequences and how these sequences were done in a new stylized way. On top of that Alec Baldwin's voice coming out of a baby is funny once you get past the creepy factor.

For a kid's movie, The Boss Baby is perfectly fine. There is a nice message buried in it about accepting a new sibling, and its harmless fun that they'll enjoy. For adults, it's not worth seeking out on your own, but of all the things you could be forced to watch this one really isn't that bad. There were admittedly things about it I did enjoy, and I did get a few good laughs out of it. Is it good? God no, but it could have been a lot worse.