The Boss Baby

The Boss Baby is Dreamworks’ latest animated film with a delightfully constructed story of sibling rivalry gone mad. Big eyes abound, reaching peaks of simulated cuteness never before thought possible. The casting is excellent – Alec Baldwin doesn’t have far to go from his 30 Rock character to slip into Boss Baby’s shoes.

Tim is a happy seven-year-old narrated by Tobey Maguire who lives the perfect life with his parents (Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow) until they decide to bring home a selfish, love-stealing baby. Audiences are warned in advance that Tim has an overactive imagination, but lines between cartoon reality and imagination get more and more blurred as the movie progresses and the two antagonists are forced to get along in order to thwart the evil plan of an ex-employee of the baby-making company the big shot infant hails from, so that he can leave his host family, return and get the ultimate promotion back at work, giving the jilted Tim back his home and family.

There is many a giggle to be had, notably when high-powered action scenes switch perspective from the children’s wild imagination to the parents’ adoring eyes, but those are soon whisked away by the overuse of tired, unfitting clichés like “minutes turned into hours, hours turned into days; every man has his breaking point and this was mine”, and emotional bonding scenes which render the ending virtually impossible not to predict. Long-winded action sequences featuring babies flying through the air may make parents feel a bit uncomfortable and bored, but these are likely to please the younger audiences (who will themselves proceed to be estranged by Boss Baby’s hackneyed business speak and watered-down adult humour).

The plot is expertly threaded and tied up at the end, leaving the average ten-year-old wondering whether it was all in Tim’s overactive young mind or was it really the story of heaven as a baby-fabricating plant. Adults, however, may feel a bit perplexed about a cute baby telling a young boy to “suck it as hard as he can”. One is almost gleefully reminded of Family Guy‘s Stewie at first, but the film turns out too heartwarming for some of the jokes it attempts.

Jennifer Sanin

Boss Baby was released nationwide on 7^th April 2017.

Watch the trailer for Boss Baby here: