The Boss Baby
Director: Tom McGrath
Writer: Michael McCullers
Based on: Marla Frazee‘s book
Cast: Miles Bakshi, Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Tobey Maguire
Seen on: 7.4.2017
Plot:
So far, Tim (Miles Bakshi) has had a great life as an only child. But everything changes when his parents (Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow) bring home a little brother for Tim. Only that there is something strange about the baby (Alec Baldwin). Tim catches him talking like an adult – and a pretty obnoxious one at that – and he obviously has something planned. And maybe his plans and Tim’s wish to be an only child are actually not that different from each other.
The Boss Baby is not the greatest (children’s) film ever, but it’s cute and entertaining. The kids with me were very entertained and the adults got a couple of jokes, too.
Making the transition from being an only child to having a sibling is a difficult thing for kids. And The Boss Baby gives us a pretty humorous take on it. It’s definitely an interesting choice to portray reproduction as a giant corporation with all the trappings of corporate culture. Looking at that more closely, it is not a metaphor that really works, if you ask me (because having children is never an economically sound decision), but in this case, it’s not actually a point the film goes into with any depth or much thought about the metaphor.
And whether it’s acutally a clever metaphor or just superficially so, the movie works the concept to great effect, with Baldwin really being the perfect choice to speak the baby as he can deliver the necessary arrogance and bossiness (ha ha) for the role.
Despite a couple of jokes and lines thrown in the direction of the adults bound to be watching the film, The Boss Baby is mostly geared at the kids. And judging from the kids in the cinema with me, it succeeded very well with that. Personally, I was also entertained throughout, even though I didn’t quite fall in love with it (maybe if it had included more female characters of note that would have worked better for me).
Summarizing: Sweet.
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