Hang on a moment; I need to catch my breath.
(Whew!)
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| Tim is astonished to discover that his infant daughter Tina actually is a clandestine operative from Baby Corp, sent to recruit him for a super-secret mission. |
McGrath took the same approach when he helmed 2017’s Boss Baby, so we shouldn’t be surprised; that said, this one feels even more frantic … which isn’t always a good thing. Michael McCullers’ script stumbles a bit out of the gate; the initial 15 to 20 minutes are too randomly chaotic, as if the story has trouble deciding which direction to take.
This sequel also assumes intimate knowledge of its predecessor. Viewers starting here will be overwhelmed by the preliminary information dump, along with the workings — and gadgets — of BabyCorp, the clandestine organization that carefully monitors the health of the “pie chart of love” between all the world’s parents and their children.
(Just in passing, I’ve always argued that a sequel should stand on its own; failure to do so suggests filmmaking arrogance.)
The ride smoothes out once the core plot is established, and the feverish velocity feels more in service of the action, and less an affectation for its own sake.
Many years have passed. Tim (voiced by James Marsden) and his younger brother Ted (Alec Baldwin) have become adults, and drifted away from each other. Tim and his wife Carol (Eva Longoria) have two young daughters: Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt), a whip-smart 7-year-old; and newly arrived infant Tina (Amy Sedaris).
Ted, the former “boss baby,” has put his business savvy to excellent use, and become a successful hedge fund CEO. He acknowledges all birthdays and important holidays with piles of lavish gifts, but rarely visits; he’s always “too busy.” This is particularly distressing for Tabitha, who idolizes her rarely seen uncle, and hopes to become just like him.
This worries Tim — still very much in touch with his childhood imagination — who fears that his elder daughter works too hard, and is missing out on childhood joys. Indeed, she’s top of her class at the prestigious Acorn Center for Advanced Childhood, which seems to be molding her into an obsessed Renaissance scholar.
Imagine Tim’s surprise, then, when his other daughter reveals a secret: Tina actually is another adult-level-cognizant secret agent from BabyCorp, which has similar concerns about the Acorn Center for Advanced Childhood. Its founder, Dr. Erwin Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum), pushes an intense curriculum that delights clueless moms and dads who focus solely on turning their kids into robotic over-achievers.
More insidiously, Armstrong’s program seems to be driving a wedge between parents and their children … and that’s of grave concern to BabyCorp.
(This is a perceptive swipe at real-world helicopter parents who insist on the best pre-school, the most prestigious kindergarten, the most rigorously well-rounded grade school, and so forth. Whatever happened to just being a kid?)
After tricking Ted into visiting, Tina reveals a plan that involves generous dollops of an aptly named baby formula. This transforms Tim and Ted into, respectively, their former adolescent and infant selves (much to the latter’s disgust). They’re now able to infiltrate the Acorn Center as “typical students.”
The assignment becomes trickier, because nobody else must know about this transformation: not Tabitha, or Carol, or her parents (Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow, briefly reprising their roles from the first film). Tim and Ted may still sound like their adult selves, but they certainly don’t look that way.
That’s ripe with comic potential.
So is the labyrinthine Acorn Center, which — as Tim and Ted independently attempt to probe its secrets — proves increasingly sinister. Dr. Armstrong’s actual intentions, once revealed, are quite disturbing (and not entirely far-fetched, which is unsettling in its own right).
Sight gags and well-timed one-liners abound, and McGrath’s script becomes cheekily inventive and clever. The “baby brigade” with which Ted (reluctantly) aligns himself is hilarious, as are Tina’s flustered, increasingly frantic efforts to help, without revealing her actual identity to Carol or Tabitha.
A sidebar detail concerns Tabitha’s anxiety over her role in an upcoming school performance for all parents. It’s more than mere stage fright; she’s convinced that she can’t sing. Tim discovers that he now can interact with her as a peer, rather than an adult, which proves instructive for both of them. That’s a sweet, thoughtful concept: well handled by Marsden and Greenblatt.
Baldwin is a stitch as the aggrieved, frustrated and put-upon Ted, further annoyed because his condescension is wasted effort, on such an infant audience. Goldblum is deliciously arch, as the insufferably smug Dr. Armstrong: an absolutely perfect marriage of actor and role. Sedaris is expressively authoritative; Tina tolerates no insubordination, and is the only individual able to outfox Ted (much to his chagrin).
The brisk visual pacing is matched by McCullers’ tart, rat-a-tat dialogue, which evokes the best 1940s (live action) screwball comedies. These pint-size characters uncork an impressive string of arch retorts and comebacks.
But it does ultimately prove exhausting: perhaps a bit too long, a bit too intense. I’m sure children’s author Marla Frazee never imagined her popular 2010 “board book” could be stretched to such lengths.
I do hope McGrath and McCullers don’t return to the well again; this franchise has been (ahem) milked to the bottom of the bottle.
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