Written by: Michael McCullers
Starring: Alec Baldwin, James Marsden, Amy Sedaris, Ariana Greenblatt, Jeff Goldblum
Rating: [2/5]
As we enter adulthood, circumstances change allowing for siblings or friends who were close to lose touch and not have the same connection held before. A whole list of reasons can define why this occurs, but sometimes you just need a world-altering event led by a malevolent leader to bring you all back together as The Boss Baby: Family Business would have you believe. A movie that certainly exists and one I watched.
Now an adult with two kids, Tim (James Marsden) barely has a relationship with his younger hotshot CEO brother Ted (Alec Baldwin). When it gets revealed Tim’s daughter Tina (Amy Sedaris) works for Baby Corp as well, she brings the brothers together with a formula to turn them back into children to investigate something sinister occurring at the local school.
Of all the animated films to receive a release in recent years, The Boss Baby did not firmly sit on the list of those that should receive a sequel. If anything it should have sat on the list of those that should never get one. The first feature left the impression it mined out everything it could from the material and idea it had, but they most certainly found a way to bring the crew back together. With the intention of representing a lovely reunification of two brothers turns into quite a lazy and uninspired sequel.
After the connection built by the two brothers in the previous film, it’s quite unfortunate they lost it when they became adults as they both lead busy lives. Ted’s work occupies his time and Tim has a family he needs to raise. This film gives them the opportunity to do the very thing that initially brought them together and now it includes Tim’s daughter who works for the agency, which only continues to raise questions about how Baby Corp operates. It also begs the question of why this corporation with various babies at its disposal needs the help of these two now-adults to revert to baby status in order to take care of this very critical mission. Having these two revert to childhood to see what they are missing certainly has the potential to remind them of their root relationship, but discovering through adulthood and their current reality might have been the stronger play here. However, going the adult route would not have presented opportunities to add an incessant amount of poop and fart jokes into the mix so I understand their plight.
When we learn of the villain’s plot in this feature it pretty much sums up the amount of effort taken by the entire team towards pumping out this movie. Voiced by Jeff Goldblum, who puts in the laziest effort in voicing his character of Dr. Erwin Armstrong. One scene, in particular, sums it all up when he screams in distress, and whatever noise he emitted felt like the weakest attempt to display this emotion. This helps make the argument against using clear adult voices for these child characters such as Goldblum unless they absolutely bring it like Amy Sedaris does with her role as the infant Tina.
The central issue has this world-altering feeling to it with what Dr. Erwin Armstrong seeks to achieve and exactly why Baby Corp needs to put a stop to it, which overextends this movie for far longer than it had any business in being except for one particular chase scene. Of all the negative things I can say about this movie, it does contain a chase scene that’s quite exhilarating as it kept going you could see they put pretty much all of their effort into this sequence. Everything else elicited nothing but a shrug and disappointment considering this feature had the quality of a straight-to-DVD sequel that somehow made it into theaters.
Ultimately forgettable and one I was forced to watch by my wife, The Boss Baby: Family Business certainly came out and gave us another adventure with Tim and Ted as they reconnect through yet another mission through Baby Corp. They somehow get a worse story to operate with an idea so devoid of freshness they had to turn them back into babies yet again. It comes through as yet another example of the roller coaster ride Dreamworks has become with its animation where they create some big hits and then turn in something as lazy as this feature, which is a shame.
Films with Josh 