Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ on Hulu, a Hyper-Overplotted Sequel Balancing Capitalist Critique With Diaper Jokes

Re: The Boss Baby: Family Business: If you make any “formula” jokes, YOU’RE FIRED. The movie — which simultaneously debuted on Peacock and in theaters this summer before landing on Hulu — is the long-awaited-if-you’re-six-years-old sequel to 2017’s The Boss Baby, which perhaps proved the existence of Satan by raking in half a billion dollars and nabbing an Oscar nomination. Such success inspired the usual franchise-isms, including sequels (a third is reportedly in the works), a TV series, a short film, an interactive Netflix special and millions of adult migraines. Alec Baldwin returns to voice the corporate infant, who with his James Marsden-voiced brother, embarks on another series of ridiculous convolutions that one might generously call a plot. But maybe it’ll keep the kiddos giggling?

THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: I frankly don’t know if I made full sense of this, but here goes nothing. Tim (Marsden), the elder brother to the Boss Baby, is now an adult, a stay-at-home dad caring for Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt), a whiz student in elementary school, and Tina (Amy Sedaris), a toddler, while their wife/mom Carol (Eva Longoria) brings home the bacon. The Boss Baby also is an adult now, Ted (Baldwin), CEO of a hedge fund, boo hiss. They couldn’t be more different, could they, and that’s why their relationship is nearly non-existent; Ted just sends ridiculously expensive gifts at Christmastime, e.g., a nose-in-the-air pony who’s put Tim on its shit list. I don’t think Ted remembers that he was the Boss Baby, who worked for Baby Corp, a business that I believe creates babies and determines whether they’re fated to be regular children or forever-babies with adult brains? Did I hear that right?

Anyhow, it turns out that Tina secretly wears a suit and works for Baby Corp, just like her uncle did. And she needs Tim and Ted to infiltrate Tabitha’s school, because it’s run by a villain, Dr. Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum), who’s bent on inciting a baby revolt against all parents. This isn’t a simple task, oh no, because it requires Tina to shrink Tim and Ted back to the ages they were in the first movie, because god forbid this movie be too different. Tim takes the opportunity to masquerade as someone else in order to get to know his daughter Tabitha better, and thankfully it’s a purely platonic friendship, lest the movie invoke the craziest bits of Back to the Future. Meanwhile, Boss Baby Ted gets stuck with all the regular moron babies in the daycare center, and he lords over them, trying to organize a breakout.

I’ve simplified all this for the sake of my sanity. I’m not sure I can do justice to its craziness. NO SPOILERS of course, but suffice to say that all this might just bring estranged brothers together and tighten father-daughter bonds while also deploying the types of things that make children giggle hysterically, including, but not limited to, massive hordes of ninja babies and some pointedly critical anti-capitalist commentary.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I haven’t been this head-on-a-swivel overwhelmed by an animated movie’s hyperspeed visual gags since the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs franchise.

Performance Worth Watching: Let’s just say Amy Sedaris deserves this paycheck and leave it at that.

Memorable Dialogue: I will say there’s something about hearing Alec Baldwin exclaim, “What a bunch of diaper sniffers!” And that something is a guilty pleasure.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: TBB:FB is rooted in a sentimental kids-grow-up-too-fast core premise that almost threatens to unite the zillion plot elements at play here: Tim and Ted blew it with their relationship the first time around; Tabitha might be thinking she’s too old to have her dad sing to her at bedtime; these babies with adult brains are a metaphor for the rapid onset of maturity in the modern age. So at least there’s something going on here, quietly developing beneath the whiz-bang OTT overload of the movie’s uber-doozy of a first act, which gets the complicated plot machinery primed and calibrated to roll through the next two, which are easier to withstand. I think children are entertained by this — my six-year-old, who loved the first film so much the thought of a sequel invoked in him great pangs of impatient anticipation, seemed to be, because ninja babies are objectively HILARIOUS.

The prospect of amused young people is probably enough to inspire a recommendation, but whether you’ll want to be in the room for it is another. It may be weird and depressing for adults, watching the scene in which the bad guy has enslaved babies to write code for apps — it’s the old get-enough-monkeys-together-for-long-enough-and-they’ll-write-Shakespeare premise — or that strange bit about climate change, or the jokes about screen time, especially if you propped your kids in front of the TV to watch Boss Baby 2 so you could get a an absolutely guilt-stricken moment or two to yourself. I’m pretty sure the movie is just one big wrecking ball aimed at late capitalism, with Tim and Ted functioning as walking metaphors for union advocates and their corporate adversaries, and in that sense, their inevitably rekindled brotherhood is an optimistic assertion that workers and ownership will find common ground in America. I’m also pretty sure it’s a whole lot of “suck it” pacifier gags and diaper comedy. Take your pick, I guess.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Boss Baby: Family Business is structured like the play room with every toy in it strewn all over the floor to the point where you have to wade through it gingerly lest you get Legos wedged in sensitive portions of the anatomy. There were parts of the movie, like the sentimental family stuff, that worked on a base emotional level; parts that reminded us about some troublesome components of American society; parts that were just acceptably silly comedy; and parts within all the aforementioned parts that felt like Legos wedged in sensitive portions of the anatomy. It’s just fine in the moment, but it’s not nearly the memorable experience that The Mitchells vs. the Machines is.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Boss Baby: Family Business on Peacock