He wears a suit and tie. He orders espresso and sushi. He is 2 weeks old.
You didn’t see that last part coming, did you? Oh, you did? Then apparently you’ve seen the ads for “The Boss Baby,” the new DreamWorks Animation feature.
In fairness, if you had an idea as profitable as “The Boss Baby,” you’d saturate the market with it, too. Who can resist the notion of an infant that takes the form of a demanding CEO? Well, all right, now that I say that out loud, it sounds pretty dumb.
But as a cartoon, and with the voice of Alec Baldwin as the baby, this thing is just funny enough to work, at least for a while. “The Boss Baby” doesn’t summon up the magic of Disney or Pixar at their best, but then it doesn’t aim for that. This movie wants to be breezy and silly, and it succeeds on both counts.
There is an elaborate reason for why a baby arrives in the form of a tiny businessman, and the explanation is actually demented enough to be funny. But we’ll spare you that.
Before we meet baby, we meet older brother Tim. A rapid-fire opening shows how happy Tim is being an only child. It’s paradise.
Then the newborn arrives, carrying a business briefcase and secretly talking to shareholders when he thinks nobody’s listening.
Tim is the only person who knows the truth. And he spends the rest of the movie trying to fight his new baby brother.
You might say that “The Boss Baby” taps into ordinary sibling rivalry through exaggeration. Surely there must be some explanation for the annoyance of younger siblings, like a supernatural tyke-manufacturing factory called BabyCorp that places scheming tots in unsuspecting homes.
“The Boss Baby” is directed by Tom McGrath, the Edmonds native who’s been responsible for some of DreamWorks’ best stuff, including the zany “Madagascar 3.” McGrath, as usual, keeps everything cracking along in lickety-split fashion.
Baldwin is Baldwin, needless to say. His comic timing is so dead-center you wonder why he ever labored as a dramatic leading man. Any similarities between his performance here and on “Saturday Night Live” are for you to discern.
“The Boss Baby” drags in Elvis impersonators and a syrupy take on the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” thus indicating that it is out of original ideas. It still works as a Saturday-afternoon time-killer, until the diaper rash sets in.
“The Boss Baby” (2 1/2 stars)
A silly idea trotted out at lickety-split speed, with Alec Baldwin providing the voice of a cartoon baby who wears a business suit and carries a briefcase. Eventually the movie runs out of ideas, but it’s a breezy enough jokefest until then.
Rating: PG for subject matter
Showing: Alderwood, Alderwood Mall, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood Cinemas, Pacific Place, Thorton Place, Woodinville, Blue Fox Drive-In, Cascade Mall
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