OVP: The Boss Baby (2017)

Film: The Boss Baby (2017)
Stars: Alec Baldwin, Miles Bakshi, Tobey Maguire, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow
Director: Tom McGrath
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The Oscars don't need to have five films nominated each year for Best Animated Feature.  When the category first started in 2001, I thought it was kind of a waste of time, and a way to cop out ignoring some truly inspired work from Disney the previous decade.  It was also a weird year to do it, since quite frankly I think Shrek was on-track to be nominated in a 5-wide field (it certainly would have made it in a ten-wide one), and by creating another category, it seemed certain that Animated Features wouldn't compete for Best Picture (I think WALL-E would have been nominated in 2008 were it not for the spare category to honor it...it certainly should have been up for Best Picture).  But as I've seen enough off-the-wall movies as a result of the OVP and this contest, I'm fine with it existing...but it only needs three nominations.  The Boss Baby proves this.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie itself is an absurdist little comedy, about a war between babies and puppies, headed by the Boss Baby (Baldwin), who is masquerading as an actual baby on Earth, but really trying to take down puppies, who are taking a larger percentage of love in the world.  He is battled by his adopted brother Tim (Bakshi as a child, Maguire as an adult), who at first wants to have his life back to normal since he doesn't want a sibling, and then together as they battle the (apparently real) battle between puppies & babies.  It's the sort of movie that you're like "yeah, that makes for a cute trailer, but will it actually translate onscreen?"

Unfortunately, it doesn't.  The film is cute, don't get me wrong, and the lead character is perfectly cast.  Baldwin is so good at playing someone absurdly driven by ego after years on 30 Rock, and his comedic skills are dead-on.  It's impossible not to like the main character, and I can see why this made so much money as the crux of a mainstream animated film's success is whether or not people will enjoy the hero.  Here, even naysayers would have to agree that the marketing team has hit a gold mine.  But the film itself is just plain stupid.  Even with enough winks to the audience about "where babies come from," there's still a strange line between absurd and meandering with the plot.  Particularly when we find out that the Boss Baby's battle with the puppies is, in fact, legitimate, it becomes harder to dismiss this as simply a game of imagination perpetrated by a young Tim that he still somehow believes as an adult.  The movie is too messy to be enjoyable to anyone wanting something more than "cute" (and that would be me), as it seems to be a marketing ploy to get your kids to be quiet for 90 minutes and less an actual movie.

Which brings me back to the Oscars, as this film now gets to be "Oscar-nominated" for the rest of time because of the 5-wide field.  Every year there's at least one movie in this category that seems like a toss-away, pointless nomination (Despicable Me 2 is another such nominee), and yet no one has the good sense to point out that with only three nominations it would be an actual competition (an Oscar category that is done well should feature all worthy nominees, but also make you realize that there's more than 5 great contenders eligible in one year).  The current state of animation doesn't allow for this (every obvious nominee gets nominated every year, it seems), and while I'd worry that Boss Baby would take out something truly special like Loving Vincent, it's probably worth the risk.  And if they are going to stick to five films, go with Lego Batman Movie over this "too long trailer" of a picture.