The Boss Baby (2017)

The Boss Baby (Dir: Tom McGrath, 2017). 

From DreamWorks Animation, The Boss Baby is loosely based on the picture book by Marla Frazee. Theodore Templeton (Alec Baldwin) is the Boss Baby, a suit and tie wearing, briefcase carrying infant. With his brother Tim, they must infiltrate their parents employer Puppy Co., the CEO of which has an evil plan to replace the babies of the world with puppies. 

The Boss Baby is a bold and colourful comedy in typical DreamWorks fashion. What the animation lacks in finer detail, it makes up for with an appealing graphic style, closer to the Mid Century Modern look of UPA shorts than the original Marla Frazee illustrations. The voices of its star cast, particularly Alec Baldwin in the lead, are strong; Tobey Maguire, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Buscemi and Jimmy Kimmel offering sterling support.

There was, thankfully, less diaper humour than expected. More of the gags hit home than not, although there are fewer laugh out loud moments than there might have been. If there is any legitimate criticism one could make of The Boss Baby, it is that the whole thing is just a little too lightweight. Alas, like many of the studio's recent movies, this one seems happy to appeal to the youngest of audience members, rather than catering for the whole family. in spite of which, the movie did well enough at the box office to warrant a Netflix series The Boss Baby: Back in Business (2018 - present) and a proposed sequel arriving in spring of 2021.

From the highs of King Fu Panda (Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, 2008) to the lows of Bee Movie (Simon J Smith & Steve Hickner, 2008), DreamWorks are the most inconsistent of animation studios. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from The Boss Baby, but I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, it is middle ground DreamWorks but, as is often the case with the studio’s output, it is a better movie than its marketing department would have you believe. It is certainly no classic but it is a pleasant time-waster, although I long for the days when DreamWorks' output was as ambitious as How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders, 2010) and Rise of the Guardians (Peter Ramsey, 2012). It is, however, better than Bee Movie.