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The animated "The Boss Baby" rises or falls on how well the audience reacts to its one and only sustained joke: putting the voice of Alec Baldwin in the mouth of a baby in a business suit.
Sure, it's funny when Baldwin does it on "Saturday Night Live" — as he mimics Donald Trump by playing him as a 70-year-old toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum. But for 90 minutes? It's more strained than a jar of baby food.
The story, adapted loosely from Marla Frazee's children's book, starts with Tim (voiced as a kid by Miles Bakshi, and as the adult narrator by Tobey Maguire), a 7-year-old who's the center of his universe. But when his parents (voiced by Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel) come home one day with a new baby brother, Tim's life is turned upside down.
Tim notices that this baby is different from the rest, wearing a black business suit and carrying a briefcase. Turns out this baby is actually an executive for BabyCorp, the magical company where babies come from — and he's on a mission to stop their corporate rival, PuppyCo, from cornering the market on cute. Tim's parents work in marketing for PuppyCo, and the suit-and-tie-wearing baby has infiltrated the family to spy on the company.
Tim agrees to help the Boss Baby on his mission, with the promise that the baby will return to BabyCorp — and his dreamed-of corner office — and let Tim get back to being his parents' spoiled only child. Yup, it's the "we ain't partners and we ain't friends" buddy-cop scenario, kid size.
That's one of the myriad movie clichés director Tom McGrath (who co-directed the "Madagascar" movies) and screenwriter Michael McCullers employ to stretch this joke out to feature length. Some of the gimmicks, like the depictions of Tim's overactive imagination, are quite funny and clever. Others, especially when the corporate intrigue of the plot kicks in, are just forced and overly familiar.
There's a clever idea at the heart of "The Boss Baby" — the notion that a new baby becomes the boss of the family, forcing parents and siblings alike to make adjustments. But that sweet bit of real-life wisdom gets lost in a mess of a movie that stinks like yesterday's diapers.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
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'The Boss Baby'
A baby in a business suit wreaks havoc in a kid's life in this derivative animated movie.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens Friday, March 31.
Rating • PG for some mild rude humor.
Running time • 97 minutes.