The Boss Baby: Movie Review

If you've caught the trailers of Dreamwork's latest film, you would have seen that there is one simple gag that underlines the film: a baby in a suit who isn't really a baby as such, more like a businessman trapped in a baby's body. While quite entertaining and packing plenty of laughs, 'The Boss Baby' doesn't deliver on many other levels as a story.

Little Tim Templeton (voiced by Miles Christopher Bakshi) seems to be living the ideal life as the only child, with a loving mum (voiced by Lisa Kudrow) and dad (Jimmy Kimmel). The intro establishes Tim as a highly creative and adventurous 7-year old with an active imagination. However, Tim's life is turned upside down when he gets, out-of-the-blue, a baby brother, the Boss Baby (perfectly voiced by Alec Baldwin). One that wears a suit and carries a briefcase. Maybe I missed it, but there's no addressing the fact that his parents just suddenly turn to Tim and say hey, you've got a baby brother. But it's a kiddie movie too, so maybe they wanted to not get into that, back to new baby.

Now, anyone who has a younger sibling will understand the 'invasion' that occurs when a baby comes into the family, and how difficult it is to get the kind of love and attention from your parents that you're used to. That's exactly what Tim undergoes and is one of the main topics that is tackled by the film's storyline. The baby here, however, is no ordinary baby, as Tim finds out. He is, in fact, a middle-manager who's been sent there as part of an important mission by his company, Baby Corp.

Baby Corp is the otherworldly company that 'makes' babies and is run by the special babies as a business. Therein lies the plot - the share of love in the world that is usually dominated by cute babies, is being taken away by their biggest rival, ie, puppies. Tim's parents work for PuppyCo, who plan to 'introduce' a new kind of puppy into the world, which could kill the business of Baby Corp, and the Boss Baby has infiltrated their home to stop that from happening.

The movie offers plenty of gags while as much of the plot is revealed, most of them about sibling rivalry, and lots of jokes using business references to explain things from a baby's perspective. And the gags continue throughout the film, with references for almost all age groups in the audience. There's an Indiana Jones reference, a Terry Crews one from 'Everybody hates Chris', some Kung Fu Panda styling is in there too, along with a few more, and none seem forced. The animation is also fantastically entertaining in a Dreamworks sort of way, while Alec Baldwin comes through brilliantly as the Boss Baby. The script takes some epicly hilarious digs at the nomenclature and nature of the world of businessmen with a heavy helping of cute babies.

While the film is weak in terms of an engaging plot and story which tries but fails to build a serious connect with the audience, it is still quite entertaining. The gags are good, the voice acting is spot-on, the laughs rarely feel forced and it has good re-watch value. I'd say Director Tom McGrath (he also directed legendary movies like the Madagascar series, Megamind and Monsters vs Aliens) has done a really good job with 'The Boss Baby' too.

I had a good time watching this film and I'd rate it 8 out of 11 milk bottles, and I do recommend watching it. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment and subscribe.