“The Boss Baby: Family Business” Film Review

By Quinn Marcus

I remember watching The Boss Baby in theaters back in 2017, and thinking to myself ‘this is going to be the worst piece of garbage I’ve ever witnessed.’ Surprisingly, the film wasn’t all too bad, sure, it was surface level (at best) compared to far superior animated films, but I actually found some enjoyment in what I was watching. The animation and voice work was fine, plenty of the jokes landed, and it passed the time, it was just a…decent winces kids film, god that was hard to say. Anyway, they did it guys, Tom McGrath made a second one, and I saw it today, on the couch, because I have nothing else to do in life…god, what am I doing with my time? Let’s get right into it, The Boss Baby: Family Business is objectively the greatest film ever made, it’s what The Godfather Part 2 was to part 1. Humanity will never again come this close to perfect, unequivocal art. I found myself invested, deeply analyzing, and contemplating the film’s profound themes of corporate greed, the hardships of parenthood, and the familial bonds and unrealistic expectations of siblings. That was the most difficult sentence I’ve ever had to write in my life, thankfully, it’s far, and I mean FAR from the truth.

The Boss Baby: Family Business tells the story of the same two brothers, Tim, and the Boss Baby who have both grown up, and have pushed the past behind them. Tim has a family, and the Boss Baby is a successful businessman, anyway, you know the drill, they’re called on another adventure involving babies who are in a crisis, and they get mad at each other occasionally, and there are some doo-doo jokes, that’s about it.

Tom McGrath isn’t what I’d call a bad animated director, sure, he’s no Miyazaki or Pete Docter, but it’s not like he directed The Emoji Movie, he’s made some decent kids films, most notably the Madagascar trilogy, and the very good Megamind. Yes, he also helmed the first Boss Baby film, which wasn’t bad either, unfortunately, this may be his worst. I can’t stress enough how absolutely annoying, half-assed, and stupid this movie was. Its plot is basically the same as the first, our two main characters are literally turned back into the ages that they were in the previous film, just to have the same comedic effect. The only real difference is that babies hate parents now instead of puppies, oh no! Alec Baldwin once again returns, voicing what used to be a pretty hilarious character who has since been reduced to a meaningless 3D creation that, when I think about it, doesn’t have much effect on the plot.

I don’t know what happened during this film, it’s weirdly confusing. Like, if you were to ask me to summarize the story of this film, I wouldn’t be able to form a proper sentence, it’s such a mess, whereas the first film was pure mindless, simplistic fun. It’s also one of the rare animated films where I felt as if the animation quality has downgraded from its predecessor, it didn’t look nearly as creative or colorful as the first. There’s a sequence in this film where two main character’s sing a Cat Stevens song (geez, what is this movie), and they dance on singing musical notes or something, and I couldn’t help but be stylistically reminded of those 2D, crap, 10-minute kids music videos on YouTube, that’s what we’re dealing with, people! For children, I guess its animation will be serviceable, there are a few fun action scenes here and there, and I didn’t find myself cringing all too much, but with some of the gorgeous animation I’ve seen in my life, this is certainly at the bottom of the barrel.

James Marsden seemingly took Tobey Maguire’s place to play the older version of Timothy, and he’s okay, the film does have some entertainment value when it came to his character’s situation of having an older voice in a child’s body, and Alec Baldwin’s decent, the voice work isn’t terrible. The first third of the film was interesting, and for a second there, I was like, damn, they may be going for some substance here, but the moment the new baby begins to talk, I was exhausted. The first film’s ending actually had stuff for children to take away from, and it was emotionally quite fulfilling, but this one seemed like it was meant for children to laugh at potty humor, and have a pointless, inane time, which is exactly what I feared it to be. Don’t get me wrong, my expectations were like the lowest of the low for this film, and perhaps some kids will like it, and parents will have 100mins to take a nap, but that’s not my kind of animated film, I’m sorry. Ah, yes, Jeff Goldblum’s also in this film, for…money reasons probably, and his role is abominably written as well. In term’s of what this film had to say, and what its message was, it’s pretty standard stuff that’ll likely be understood by kids, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and I highly doubt kids will be affected by it in any way, shape, or form. In the end, The Boss Baby: Family Business was an absolutely unnecessary sequel that turned out to be a lazily written, sort of amusing diversion strictly for kids that can barely justify its own existence.