‘The Boss Baby’ Review: Generic goofiness

Oggs Cruz

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‘The Boss Baby’ Review: Generic goofiness
'The Boss Baby' squanders so much of its promise all for gags, giggles and easy entertainment'

Believe it or not, there’s actual promise to the premise of The Boss Baby, the Dreamworks cartoon about an infant, voiced rather lazily by Alec Baldwin, who doesn’t just talk, but barks orders like the stereotypical corporate bully.

Love as a limited resource

In the cartoon, the world is a place where love is a limited resource and companies are creating new products to take the lion’s share of the pie.

Screengrab from YouTube/DreamWorksTV

We first see the titular character in the baby factory being separated from the rest of the family-bound babies to be delivered to one of the thousands of cubicles meant for babies with an acumen for business. He is then sent by his bosses to live with the family of seven-and-a-half year old Tim (Miles Christopher Bakshi) to stop rival Puppy Co. from releasing its new breed of puppies, which are bound to take over the babies’ share of love around the world.

 

Screengrab from YouTube/DreamWorksTV

 In his effort to save his company’s market share in worldwide affection, he goes about his business of being the needy baby of the family, which means Tim, who used to have his parents’ sole attention, is left without all the care he has gotten used to.

The first half of the cartoon is mostly a series of silly skits that has Tim and the baby outmaneuvering each other. It can be amusing depending on one’s tolerance for animated hijinks and goofiness.

 

 

 

Generic territory

Screengrab from YouTube/DreamWorksTV

In some absurd way, the cartoon’s conceit of using corporate greed and protectionism within a familial setting works to elevate the rather simplistic plot of siblings needing to cooperate for the greater good.

Sadly, it doesn’t really make most of the concept. The cartoon is content being cute and corny. It wastes its very clever concept by reducing it into just a running gag instead of being a subtle commentary on current events or even contemporary corporate society, but that is probably too much to expect out of children’s entertainment churned out by soulless Hollywood.

So the cartoon quickly spirals downwards into generic territory when it steps out of the household and becomes just another adventure to beat the bad guy and learn a lesson along the way. There seems to be no effort made to distinguish The Boss Baby from all the other cartoons that has come before it.

It has the same gloss. It has the same harmless appeal, the same banter, and the same banal humor.

 

Squandered promises

Screengrab from YouTube/DreamWorksTV

The Boss Baby squanders so much of its promise all for gags, giggles and easy entertainment. It only purports to humorously offend but in reality, it champions being average, being safe, and being absolutely forgettable amidst all the other cartoons that resemble it. – Rappler.com

 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.



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