The Boss Baby - Should've Been Killed in Utero
- Thread starter Marter
- Start date
I'm almost not sure if the movie could be as bad as you make it sound. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of seeing it. In fact, my time might be better served watching the Coffee is for Closers scene. I just find it hard to imagine a movie could be this bad.
Then again, I don't think I laughed at any jokes in the trailer. Actually groaned at one (it's antifunny). Just seems off to see so much effort in animating a bad movie. Thought bad movies usually got Little Panda Fighter animation.
Then again, I don't think I laughed at any jokes in the trailer. Actually groaned at one (it's antifunny). Just seems off to see so much effort in animating a bad movie. Thought bad movies usually got Little Panda Fighter animation.
Who would've thought that a movie built around a single joke (This baby... behaves like an adult businessman! Ha ha! That's... not a thing babies usually do! Isn't that humorous? This goes on for another eighty-five minutes!) would turn out to be bad?
I mean... didn't Family Guy pretty much use up all this material already? A decade ago?
I mean... didn't Family Guy pretty much use up all this material already? A decade ago?
Kudos to Marter for enduring this horror and living to write about it.
Were you contractually obligated to review this one or do you just hate yourself, and if you didn't before, do you now?
Were you contractually obligated to review this one or do you just hate yourself, and if you didn't before, do you now?
Thats honestly what I thought the movie was going to be based on the trailers. Surprised and disappointed to hear otherwise
Huh. I heard it advertised on the radio a few times, and given it apparently comes out on April 1st I wasn't sure if it was a real film or not...
Dreamworks animation has become decedent and complacent. What ever happened to these movies!
And to be fair......Shrek 2 was pretty good:
And to be fair......Shrek 2 was pretty good:
I find it suspicious that apart from Shrek 2, every film you listed is 2D. Yep. No bias there...Samtemdo8 said:
That said, I disagree with the idea that DreamWorks has "become" complacent. DreamWorks' output, in my experience, ranges from average to good, and in 'How to Train Your Dragon', excellent. From the looks of things, 'Boss Baby' is the DreamWorks formula followed to a T, without any of the depth that some of their other films have managed to have. Because looking at a ranking of every DreamWorks film I've seen...
15) Shrek Goes Fourth
14) Monsters vs. Aliens
13) Shark Tale
12) Flushed Away
11) The Road to El Dorado
10) Puss in Boots
9) Antz
8) Chicken Run
7) Kung Fu Panda 3
6) Over the Hedge
5) Kung Fu Panda
4) Shrek
3) Prince of Egypt
2) Shrek 2
1) How to Train Your Dragon
There isn't really a steady trend as far as I can see. The ranking has nothing to do with the period in which the film was released.
I will admit to having a bit of a soft spot for DreamWorks though. I've seen that they can generate some outstanding work, but so often their work comes off as just being average. Not on Disney or Pixar level, but above Blue Sky and Illumination.
I haven't gotten the chance to watch How to Train your Dragon series. Everyone say its surprisingly awesome?Hawki said:
But other Dreamworks movies that i did like where in CG animation were:
Antz (I find it to be the better movie than Bug's Life)
And to a degree the third Shrek movie because well it had better jokes and more cooler chacaters than the abysmmal 4th Shrek movie.
I thought Monsters v Aliens was amusing, and Megamind was alright.
I love Chicken Run but I don't consider it a true Dreamworks film.
This is as expected. Then again I wouldn't "trust" Marter's review of sunny weather.
If you like dragons and can sympathize with the ol' loser outcast wimpy protagonist. I'd say it's immensely overrated, and believe it or not, I use that word sparingly.Samtemdo8 said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ku4Lk6BNIoSamtemdo8 said:
The following is a link to a mini-review of the film that explains why it works better than I can, but I'll try regardless.
"Surprisingly awesome" is a true description on two levels. One is that it's not the kind of film you'd usually expect from DreamWorks, whose films are usually focused on humour, slapstick, references, etc. Sometimes these elements are mixed with actual depth (Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, etc.), sometimes they're absent entirely (Prince of Egypt), but, like PoE, HtTYD is a very atypical DreamWorks movie.
The other element is that on one level, the film shouldn't work, because it's one cliche after another. "A boy and his x?" Check. "Parent loves son but doesn't understand him?" Check. "Liar revealed?" Check. "Dweeb finds love?" Check. And so on. The film isn't going to win any points for originality. And yet, somehow, it works. It works so well that I didn't mind any of these cliches. Found myself invested for the entire run. It also helps that its OST is excellent, as is its animation, especially with the flying scenes.
So, on one hand, it's very easy to see how someone wouldn't like this film, but for me and for many others, somehow, the elements that should be drawbacks aren't.
I think the big difference between them is that Pixar makes adult films that happen to be child friendly, while Dreamworks mainly makes children's films that happen to be adult friendly. Shrek is a great film, but fundamentally it's a generic fairytale with the hero and villain swapped plus a bit of "be yourself and don't judge on looks" thrown in. Same for How to Train Your Dragon which, as you say, is an incredibly clich?d "boy and his X" story, despite managing to be highly entertaining in doing so. Compare those with something like Up!, which is all about the struggles of an old man to fulfil his lifelong dream after the death of his wife, or Finding Nemo about a single parent struggling to connect with his child (again after the death of his wife, dammit Pixar!).Hawki said:
Their films often end up looking similar, but Pixar tends to take adult themes and present them in a way that will keep the kids happy while the parents are watching, while Dreamworks tends to take children's themes and present them in a way that might keep the parents happy while the kids are watching. The trouble is that if you're not a child, the Dreamworks approach can often fall flat if they don't manage to add enough adult bits in, while the Pixar approach doesn't have the same problem unless you're a child, in which case you're probably not arguing about reviews on the internet.
So overall it's not so much that Dreamworks are really just average, but rather than they're usually not really aiming at the same audience. If you look at them as something to entertain the children without annoying the adults too much, they're usually pretty decent and way above most of the animated children's crap around. It's only when you look at them as adult films for adults to go and see by themselves that they suffer in comparison to Pixar, since that's not really what they're for.
