You know what? It’s never gonna not be cool to hear Jeff Goldblum’s voice coming out of an animated baby’s mouth. The question is whether it’s worth sitting through a chaotic, loud, relentless movie in the process.

The Boss Baby: Family Business is the sequel to the 2017 film which garnered way more money than acclaim. It made a half billion dollars worldwide and, to be fair, did get an Academy Award nomination (Coco, a sublime film, won that year).

In this installment, the Templeton brothers are no longer babies, they have grown into adults. Tom (James Marsden) and Red (Alec Baldwin) have grown apart. Tim is a stay-at-home Dad, which seems to be a subliminally emasculated role here, or maybe I’m just sensitive because I hold the same job? Younger brother Ted is a hedge fund guy (and I still don’t know what a hedge fund person is or does, and I am too old to learn for the first time).

I liked the opening scenes showing Tom’s Dad life with the kids and all that entails. You see the distance that naturally starts to occur between parent and growing child, as his oldest daughter, Tabitha,  seems to be reaching that stage.  Or maybe she’s being influenced by her school life? Her school, the Acorn Center for Advanced Childhood, seems maybe a little sketchy, in spite of its prestige.

But the baby of the family, Tina, reveals to a shocked Tom (shocked because she can suddenly speak and in the voice of the great Amy Sedaris) that she is actually a secret agent for uncle Ted’s Babycorp and on assignment to “uncover the dark secrets behind Tabitha’s school and its mysterious founder, Dr. Erwin Armstrong.” That’s Goldblum’s character.

For reasons I don’t remember right now, or didn’t understand, the two brothers are able to go back to being babies for 48 hours as they investigate the school.

Over the past 30 years, audiences have gotten used to references that are made just for  parents who are watching – for some reason I just thought of the Genie (Robin Williams) doing a flash impersonation of William F. Buckley in Aladdin. I love those Easter eggs – in this movie, for example, there’s a quick-or-you’ll-miss-it reference to Sally Field in Norma Rae. 

I love seeing those drops in “kids’ movies. However, as I watched this movie, my mind kept going to the same question: “What kid will even get this plot?”  Forget Easter eggs, this is a whole basket that, it seems to me, will not make sense to a lot of its intended viewers.

Does that matter? Maybe not. Maybe that’s why the film rarely pauses from a noisy barrage. The animation style, intentionally suggestive of 50s films and not the hyper-realistic model used these past years, is perfectly aimed at tots: candy-colored and rounded edges.

So, it’s a mixed review from me. Alec Baldwin parading around as a short-legged baby is just as funny as it looks on paper. The aforementioned Mr. Goldblum’s celebrated stammer is a joy to the ears. 

But as Dr. Suess would say, “Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!”

Boss Baby: Family Business plays in theatres beginning July 2nd and begins streaming the same day on Peacock.

2 ½ out of 4 Stars | rated PG| Reviewed by Kyle Osborne