The Boss Baby

They've made a sequel to this one—coming out (so to speak) July 2nd—but, like Problem Child 2 and Look Who's Talking Too (and most families), the sequel will probably get less attention paid to it, so I guess I better publish the "long-in-gestation" review of the original.

Enfant Terrible
or
"A Movie That Combines the Unbearable Smugness of Alec Baldwin with the Unbearable Smugness of...a Baby." -- John Oliver

So many movies have come down the pike, but few have touched on the first crisis in a person's life—that little slice of time when a kid goes from being "the pride and joy" to "the old baby." There are a lot of hard issues there—displacement, abandonment, and dealing with sharing the attention and affection that was previously exclusive. "Only child" is a lofty perch to fall from.

Take Tim Templeton (voiced by Tobey McGuire as an adult/Miles Bakshi as a 7 year old): he had the full attention of two (count 'em) two parents—dedicated employees of PuppyCo.—who would read to him at night and sing his favorite song to him as he drowsed to sleep (for the "record:" "Blackbird" by Lennon-McCartney, but...McCartney). Then, the "second child" comes along and things change. Radically.

It's hardly fair. Tim hasn't changed. He's merely...redundant. The "new baby" is Theodore "The Boss", inexplicably wearing a business suit—and in Tim's view, anyway—can talk (with the voice of Alec Baldwin). His parents (voiced by Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow) are seemingly oblivious to this, making the 7 year-old the only one who can see "the truth" about his younger sibling. This creeps Tim out, and he's determined to expose the truth about Theodore by providing proof of his abilities to Mom and Dad.

Already, a "Calvin and Hobbes"-ian kiddie-verse has been established, where the realities of kids is far different than that of the clueless parents. It's not as extreme as "Toy Story" where alternative view-point is that of inanimate objects, but, still the efforts it takes to keep the kiddie-world-view under wraps is far more complex than the Pixar's series' "Okay, toys! Drop in place!" Fortunately, the older generation has a low threshold for exhaustion, so while Mom and Dad conk out, the kids are unsupervised and counter-conspiring. Much like real-life.

Tim's initial strategy is to expose Theodore's ability to talk to the parents by gathering some evidence, which he manages to acquire when a "play-date" is arranged with other local babies. In reality—or the babies' reality, anyway—it is a BabyCorp. corporate presentation on the danger of a rival company, PuppyCo (why, that's where Tim's parents work!) that plans to create the ultimate pet to supplant babies for the little limited love the world has to offer—they don't say that, but it's my take on it. Theodore, because he doesn't react to being tickled, is one of the babies chosen to be management, and so, he's been sent to find out what's going on at PuppyCo. in order to...I dunno...start a Disney franchise about a fashion designer who kills puppies. Sounds reasonable.

Anyway, Tim and Theodore decide to join forces, so that they both get what they want: Theodore gets a promotion and a corner office, and Tim gets Theodore promoted and out of his house. Along the way, we learn that if you want to visit BabyCorp. all you need to do is suck on a special pacifier—which sounds problematic in a world of baby monitors—and that the Corporate babies at BabyCorp. stay babies by sucking on a secret formula that stops their aging process. It all sounds very complicated and messy, not unlike babies, but basically it boils down to Babies and Puppies are in a war for being the cutest generators of affection and that it somehow matters.

It doesn't. It really doesn't. While the idea of corporate robber barons being just big babies has a kind of snarky, cynical appeal, the machinations to create the house-of-cards plot are far too complicated to sustain. And while the film breezes us along, lulling us with jokes featuring big-eyed babies and bigger-eyed puppies, it can't completely stall the feeling that we're being had, with a combination of gooey sentiment and veiled sarcasm, to keep us from thinking about it too much.  

One always looks at movies with an appreciation towards the efforts to bring it to the screen. The voices are well-cast, the colors bright and the drawing/pixilation all imaginatively smooth and un-glitchy. I particularly liked its comic timing. That's a lot of effort. It's in service to a slight story, however, that doesn't have much internal logic to it...in this reality, or the alternate one it conveys.

I mean, if you can't believe in babies and puppies, what's the point??