The Boss Baby

Well here we don't even bother with the gooseberry bush, let along the maternity ward, as the young besuited baby arrives to join mum, dad and elder brother "Tim". These kids don't exactly hit it off. Is that because "Tim" is jealous of the love his parents smother their new arrival with? Or is it because he doesn't behave like a baby at all, just a diminutive business executive who speaks and acts like someone forty times his age? At his most confused, "Tim" also discovers that this rugrat has a more sinister objective and that the boss of the global megacorp "Puppy Co." has instigated a plan that will forever change the loving dynamic between people and their favourite pets. It seems that the only chance he has to thwart this dastardly plan is to work together with his duplicitous and bossy but incredibly astute sibling. Loads of escapades now follow as the pair have to do some intrepid detective work, risk life and limb, and even join an Elvis impersonators convention. Now had they just left the scenario with a degree of obnoxious baby menace, then this might have worked better for me. Sadly, though, they hadn't the courage of the original conviction of the film and so it drifts all too readily into a cheesy world of sentiment and predictability that neuters the whole thrust of the thing. It does take a bit of a pop at the corporate world and at it's approach to monetising children and pets so shamelessly, but the fun is sucked out of it simply by relying on a mediocre script and a soundtrack of adapted ballads whilst the sense of mischief just peters away. It all just goes too goo goo ga ga in the end, and though I get I'm not the demographic, I still thought it an opportunity for something a bit different just wasted.