The Boss Baby: Family Business
Universal PicturesWhen we inevitably look back on what the consumerist world inflicted on the state of art, we had best be wary of this dark, dark period. The Boss Baby: Family Business is another stain on the superb world of animated antics and feature-length offerings from Dreamworks Animation. How mighty these titans have fallen. But like Icarus, we must all fall from those incredible highs. We do not know we are in the good times until we have left them. It is just fascinating that the good times were Over the Hedge. Alec Baldwin returns, Tobey Maguire does not. He is replaced by James Marsden, whose speciality in recent years has been child-oriented features. Unfortunately, Sonic the Hedgehog was the high. This is the low. A drop down to ill-fated journeys with a family of four and their famed, elusive relatives.
Ted Templeton, the boss baby himself, is no longer a baby. He is just a boss. The issue with growing up is an obvious one. We lose an innocence and sentimental love of the world. Work and reality chip away at our imagination, but The Boss Baby: Family Business brings up this horrible inevitability with cheap workarounds. The imagination of Tim (Marsden) lives on, primarily in his attic and away from his wife and child. He tried to inflict them with such torturous creativity, but they are simply not interested. Another chip from the giant block of “technology is tearing us from the real world,” a trope that feels far more annoying than the tech-obsessed teens of this new era. Tim grew apart from his brother and regrets it.
But semantics and themes are only as strong as the animation that surrounds them. Much of The Boss Baby: Family Business wishes to rehash the gags and styles of the first film. To this extent, Tim lives in his parents' home – or at least one that looks identical to that of The Boss Baby. Everything from animation style, vocal tones, topics and its themes are, more or less, no different to that of the film that set it all up. Baldwin’s performance feels like an amalgamation of his Donald Trump portrayal on Saturday Night Live and the arrogant, cold stylings of Larry Quinn from The Cat in the Hat. Such a blend does have its moments, and Baldwin is thankfully not wasted on this piece. He is amicable and does much of the heavy lifting, aiding the likes of Jeff Goldblum and Eva Longoria, who want a slice of this baby-oriented pie. It is unsure as to why, especially since this sequel offers nothing of real meaning or motivation for further study of the characters or even entertaining antics for them to follow through with.
A first act that rehashes the imagination and tears away from the childhood The Boss Baby had in mind, and then an hour and a half of catching up with minor characters from a universe it is simply difficult to care for. It is easier to assume there are continuity errors between The Boss Baby: Family Business and the many spin-offs that prelude its creation than it is to put our faith and trust in the direction of McGrath. His latest pet project sees a sequel spin nothing of real unique quality. It is what it is, and what it is, is bland.