I have subjected myself to so much rancid feces lately. I guess you could say that I’m on a bad movie kick and it all started with The Emoji Movie.
Nevertheless the damage has been done, I have set through so much garbage on Netflix and Amazon Prime so, when my kids asked if they could rent The Boss Baby, my response was, “sure, it’s not like I haven’t been letting myself get exposed to pure eyeball sewage for the last couple of weeks anyway.”
The Boss Baby sounds like the worst idea ever because it probably is. In this animated movie, A Bouncing baby bundle of joy is delivered to a household where are the formerly only child of said house notices that the baby always wears a tie and behaves strangely. Yes, only the kid realizes it. It’s one of those movies.
It’s only a matter of time before the kid realizes that the baby can talk and the baby, voiced by Alec Baldwin, explains that he was sent from baby headquarters or something to ensure that an evil plot by the puppy manufacturers of the world does not steal all the love from the babies of the world.
What follows is pretty much what you would expect. Everything you believe that will happen in this movie does happen and there are no surprises anywhere aside from the fact that the movie actually does not suck anywhere as much as you think it’s going to. Don’t get me wrong, The Boss Baby is way too long and it’s sense of humor is completely and totally wrong for the thing that was going for which I’m not going to spoil but you’ll figure out pretty early. Alec Baldwin is suitable as the boss baby, but really does nothing surprising or two hilarious. The other voice talent is passable. Nothing great, and nothing horrible.
Therein lies the proverbial rub. The Boss Baby isn’t the steaming pile of excrement that you believe it might be despite the fact of this movie is built on one of the worst ideas I’ve heard of… or, at least it was until The Emoji Movie came along, but at the same time, it’s nothing special. Nothing about this movie stands out, nothing about it is outrageously horrible, nothing about it is endearing or emotional, and none of it makes you want to tear your couch cushions in half out of frustration. The Boss Baby is, in every sense of the word, a perfectly average and perfectly forgettable motion picture. At least I will be remembering The Emoji Movie for years to come even if those memories will probably haunt me and make me have to go to therapy. I won’t remember The Boss Baby. Even now, my memories of it are fleeting and fading. In many ways, being average and forgettable is a worse fate for a movie then being a gigantic pile.
The middle ground is not a place to be if you are a motion picture. Be great, be terrible, but whatever you do, don’t be average.
Jason Gaston 