by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
After a long year of endeavoring to find ways to entertain a 6- and 8-year-old every weekend, we were excited to add a trip to the theater back to our list of options! My girls were incredibly excited to see Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.Wait… what is this… Dr. Strange!? Release me from this time loop. I will bargain!
Sorry about that, I guess one of the great staples of the summertime is the release of multiple family film sequels and Boss Bay 2: Family Business is no exception. It’s interesting that within one month, I would be talking about sequels to two kid’s movies whose first installment I really enjoyed. The original Boss Baby was quite clever and really did emphasize what it was like to have two young children. It had a wild imagination on display that let the movie cheat by both being ridiculous and silly, but also letting the audience know this is a kid’s imagination. The sequel keeps that imagination and wonder, but completely throws the idea that this might not actually be happening out the window. My opinion? It works!
The Boss Baby: Family Business takes place 30ish years after the original and all our main characters from the first movie are grown up. Tim, now voiced by James Marsden, has a wife and two small daughters, but is still ever the dreamer with a wild imagination. This makes him the coolest stay-at-home dad ever, or so he thinks. Ted, voiced once again by Alec Baldwin, is an extravagantly successful businessman who doesn’t have time for anything but work. This, of course, has led the two brothers to have grown apart over the years. Tim is dismayed when he learns that his oldest daughter, Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt) doesn’t want him to help her prepare for the upcoming holiday pageant at school. He fears she is embarrassed of him. This is only exacerbated when Ted shows up and it’s clear that Tabitha looks up to Ted and his success. Now, I know what you’re thinking, how is this a Boss Baby movie? There’s nary a boss nor a baby! Well, that’s where little sister Tina comes in (voiced by the very funny Amy Sedaris). It turns out she is an undercover agent of BabyCorp and she needs Tim and Ted to go on a secret mission. After being “de-aged” by magic baby formula, the boys are tasked with learning the nefarious plans of Dr. Armstrong, the headmaster of Tabitha’s new private school, the same private school that has been popping up all over the world seemingly out of nowhere. Dr. Armstrong is a weird dude to be sure and has an unbelievable secret. So of course they cast the perfect person to play him: Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum plays the perfect part as the villain and once the stage is set, the movie is a nonstop adventure until the end, full of heart and humor.
The voice cast really does shine in this movie, which is something you usually don’t see in an animated sequel. Usually, a bunch of returning A-list celebrities come back for a paycheck and deliver a passable performance. In The Boss Baby 2, I really felt like they were all having a ton of fun with the incredibly silly material they were given. The comedy of the sequel holds up to that of the original and in some cases exceeded the first Boss Baby. Alec Baldwin makes every word that comes out of the baby’s mouth funny, especially the phrase, “Who wants to play Shawshank?” Goldblum channels his Grand Master character from Thor: Ragnarok with a more animated twist. Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow also return as Tim and Ted’s parents for a funny and heartfelt scene at the dinner table. Parents will be able to enjoy many of the jokes throughout the movie, and there are plenty of slapstick pratfalls and jokes that the kids will love as well. Part of why I enjoyed the slower first half is because my girls were giggling their heads off throughout. Getting to watch a movie through their eyes is definitely one of the joys of parenting (especially when a movie isn’t aimed at my demographic).
As much as I enjoyed the film, it’s not without flaws. As fun and silly as it got at times, there are plot holes and conveniences galore, which made it feel that those things weren’t a concern for the writers. Logic tends to fly out the window in animated sequels, and I know, if you’re going to complain about plot holes in a movie with talking babies and magic de-aging formula, maybe you’re taking it a bit too seriously. But in a movie with all those goofy elements, if the plot is distracting you with logical flaws or conveniences, then it is my opinion that they dropped the ball a bit. Am I surprised, though? Not at all. My expectations for The Boss Baby 2 were not the same as the expectations I had for a movie like Luca. Then again, that may have worked in The Boss Baby’s favor. Lower expectations going in allowed for me to be surprised by the finished results.
I think that The Boss Baby 2: Family Business is the perfect family film for the summer, whether you want an afternoon matinee out with the kids or a rainy day inside watching it on Peacock. This isn’t a movie that will make you cry, but it has a nice message of familial and brotherly love. If you let yourself have a good time with it, I think you will have fun.
Grade: B
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