The main egg in all this Easter basket grass is Baldwin’s vocal performance. He infiltrates a family where the parents (voiced as if they needed to feed the parking meter outside of the recording studio by Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel) both work in the marketing department of the puppy company.
(I’m guessing it sounded funnier when pitched in the old Dreamworks conference room). This baby was plucked for management and sent to thwart the growing popularity of puppies. It turns out babies come from some fluffy white conveyer belt in the sky (imagine heaven for lost luggage) where a pinball flipper sorts them by gender and disposition. Unfortunately, The Boss Baby goes in the opposite direction, constructing a convoluted Habitrail of a plot in an attempt to explain why there’s a baby who sounds like a 50-something Long Islander, carries a briefcase, and tosses wads of ever-replenishing money at any problem he encounters. The introduction of the titular character-he pops out of a taxicab in black suit and tie and struts up to the door to his own disco soundtrack, like Truman Capote arriving at Studio 54 in 1977-is one of the film’s better jokes it also cleverly underscores the idea of the new baby as being in a world of desirability of which the previous child could only dream.
If the film had gone all in on this concept and been a full bore fever dream of will-my-parents-still-love-me anxiety, The Boss Baby might have become the rare movie, like Pixar’s Inside Out, that successfully navigates the complicated inner life of a child.
In truth, there is some emotional resonance to the underlying conceit of the film, one that posits the idea that for an older child, the introduction of a new baby to an already established family is often less happy expansion than it is unfriendly corporate takeover. But if you are willing to just go along with its primary, if not singular, joke- Alec Baldwin does his corporate killer act, only this time he’s a wubbable wittle baby-you may be lucky enough not to notice. A meme dressed up as a movie, The Boss Baby doesn’t stand up to careful consideration, or really any at all.
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