Now an adult with children of his own, “Boss Baby” protagonist Tim (James Marsden) has become estranged from his younger brother, now a high-powered, busy Boss Man with no memory of his unusual infancy. Wasting nary a minute of its nearly two-hour running time catching newcomers up on the larger Boss Baby lore, “Family Business” dives headfirst into a plot that’s no less dense. conglomerate, equipped with specially powered formula and pacifiers, and sent on a reconnaissance mission to take down Big Puppy.
For film with a one-joke premise, the original “Boss Baby” actually had a rather complicated plot, in which a standard sibling rivalry conflict between a seven-year-old boy and his baby brother is complicated by the fact that the baby in question, Ted (Baldwin), is in fact an undercover agent from the all-powerful Baby Corp.
The film itself, unfortunately, is generally less interesting than the business matters behind it, a thoroughly competent affair that tosses in just enough off-the-wall elements to liven up a fairly basic retread of the original’s formula.Īnd honestly, kudos to returning director Tom McGrath for twice managing to hit all of the standard kidpic paces with a concept this insane. Arriving in theaters earlier that initially planned, with a simultaneous streaming bow on Peacock, “The Boss Baby: Family Business” is making a similarly big bet that family audiences, otherwise bereft of new attractions, are ready to return to theaters. Well, they made a sequel to “The Boss Baby.” The 2017 DreamWorks film, extremely loosely based on Marla Frazee’s children’s book series, bet big on the appeal of a dyspeptic, super-intelligent, black-suited infant speaking with the voice of Alec Baldwin while doing un-babylike things, and it was a bet that paid off handsomely, to the tune of half a billion in worldwide box office and an Oscar nomination.
The Boss BMovie Review Poster Trailer Online Director: Tom McGrath Writers: Marla Frazee(characters), Michael McCullers Stars: Alec Baldwin(voice), James Marsden(voice), Amy Sedaris