The Boss Baby could've gone a couple of different ways and perhaps not have appealed to all audiences. First off, the film follows a "newborn" who can talk like a Wall-Street professional with Alec Baldwin's voice and who is as smart as a Harvard professor. This could have played out on the silly side that only takes the attention from young kids or it could have some adult themes to it too, like we've seen with certain Disney and Pixar films.
With The Boss Baby, it's a little bit of both and is mixed quite well that should satisfy most people. Sure, there are still some silly moments, full of fart jokes, and big scary guys dressed as women, and people falling on themselves, but it mostly works in this weird world that director Tom McGrath (Madagascar) and writer Michael McCullers (Austin Powers) have conjured up. The film centers around a young boy named Tim who lives with his loving parents and has an all around great life.
One day, a taxi shows up and a baby in a fancy suit shows up and is Tim's new brother. This baby can talk like an adult and is smart like one. Soon, Tim discovers that this new baby, who is referred to as Boss, is trying to destroy Tim's dad's puppy business. Ultimately, in order to stop an evil person from taking over the world, Tim and his new hated baby brother must band together and stop this bad guy.
Lessons about family, love, and loyalty are learned alongside fart jokes, music montages, and great visuals. There are a ton of blatant references to other films wherein you can tell the director and writers are big fans of 80s movies, which should make the adult crowd laugh quite a bit. On the other hand, some of these references wink too hard at you and hit you over the head too often.
The voice talent is top notch, with Alec Baldwin shining as a funny boss baby. He was born to voice this role. It's funny, but true. The story zig-zags through action-adventure territory and some more dramatic moments of family strife, which is mostly done well at a quick pace, but in other moments, it can drag too. Still, The Boss Baby delivers the goods, despite its insane and almost too cutesy premise and storytelling, and yes, they're making a sequel.
Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Boss Baby comes with comes with a 50GB Blu-ray Disc and DVD that are Region A Locked. There is an insert for a Digital HD copy. The discs are housed in an eco-friendly, hard, blue plastic case with a cardboard sleeve too.
The Boss Baby comes with an impressive 1080p HD transfer and is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This digitally animated film looks excellent in both detail and color, and is visually pleasing. Tons of bright colors inhabit the screen from start to finish, whether it be the bright primary neon colors in Tim's imagination, the lush and rich blues of Babycorp, or the oranges and reds of the household. All colors are deep and look amazing. It's exactly what you'd want from a silly animated comedy of this sort.
The detail is sharp and vivid where you'll be able to distinguish animated hairs, textures in skin and clothing, with wider shots providing depth and sharpness for plant life and tons of hyper puppy dogs. Black levels are deep and inky with the animated skin tones looking natural. There were no issues with banding, aliasing, or video noise.
This release comes with a lossless DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix. There is no Dolby Atmos track like on the 4K UHD Disc. This track sounds very good, however, it's a bit soft for the most part, which led me to turn up the volume to hear all of the funny sound effects. Once I did, the audio track is quite good with loud, robust noises off all shapes and sizes that pack a powerful, yet fun punch with good directionality.
The ambient noises of dogs in a big room provide great reverb and echoes as do the many babies laughing at Babycorp. This is where the Dolby Atmos would be utilized to give a sense of height. The score is energetic and always adds to the entertainment value here and the bass keeps a good pace with the heavier actions sequences. Dialogue is always clear and easy to follow along, and free of any pops, cracks, and hiss.
All of the Bonus Materials included with this release are HD Exclusives (see below).
The Boss Baby is a cute film that has a few laughs and some heart. It's not specifically for adults and plays more to the younger crowd, but there are a few moments that should spark interest and smiles with everyone. The film itself looks great and should appease most. The Blu-ray video is outstanding and visually satisfying all the way through, while the DTS-HD 7.1 mix was a little soft. The set comes with a Blu-ray Disc, a DVD, and a digital copy too. With all of this in mind, this comes Recommended!
