The war between brothers is about to heat up, and when The Boss Baby comes to town, the toys are going to fly. Just as one would expect, the Dreamworks Animation film has a lot of visual panache on display, and no frame is wasted in this visual cornucopia of a film. That said, there's one question that looms ever more imposingly over this film's entirety: does it look any good in 3D?
So the time has come to answer that question, in our usual To 3D or Not To 3D evaluation! However, if you're interested in seeing how much we enjoyed The Boss Baby as an actual movie, you'll want to head to our official review here. Otherwise, it's time to sharpen our crayons and see if Boss Baby's adventure is worth the extra 3D money, or if we'd be better off sinking some money into tailor-made suits for infants.
A child's imagination can be an exciting and scary place to be, and The Boss Baby captures those feelings with a lot of optical flare. Beautiful colors and artwork occupy every corner of the film's visual output, and the 3D component is actually well suited. Everything from gestures of love through sliding beads to a particularly fantastic backyard chase scene was made to be shown in 3D.
The folks behind the 3D version of The Boss Baby obviously had a blast putting together this movie. For the most part, this film makes superb use of the third dimension, as there's no shortage of sight gags and adventure that spans both sides of the imaginary 3D window. However, there's still some aspects that fell by the wayside, but for the most part, The Boss Baby's planning and effort is pretty impressive.
As far as this year's 3D efforts are concerned, The Boss Baby hurls a consistent amount of items at the screen, and it all works! In particular, the backyard chase scene between Tim and Boss Baby's army shines, as Nerf darts fill the screen - and they're all heading towards you! Breakfast cereal, sliding beads, and even puppies are all used to our perfect 3D delight! Even the imaginary world of Tim's various adventures provides a healthy dose of visual rocket fuel coming at the audience at breakneck pace.
Complementing the barrage of visual assets being flung through the window, The Boss Baby reaches just as phenomenally in the reverse direction. In particular, the depths of Tim's various daydreams are of special note, as it the worlds the young man creates are even deeper than the real world. One sequence where a typical suburban hallway turns into a ninja friendly corridor is a prime example of how the depth of this film's 3D presentation is stellar to look at. With a crisp division between characters and their backgrounds, as well as fantasy and reality, the eye is very pleased.
Here's where The Boss Baby starts to falter a little bit. For a film with such a rich color palette, this movie disappoints just a bit when you put your glasses on. It's not enough of a color drain to be a deal breaker, but it's definitely noticeable, as when you lift your glasses up, you get a lot more color detail. Your mileage may vary on this factor, of course, as the theater you're seeing The Boss Baby in may not have calibrated their projector properly when switching between a 2D and 3D showing.
As far as the blurriness factor goes, The Boss Baby has some rich blur in its backgrounds. This helps draw the depths of the image pretty impressively, as the more blur there is, the more depth there should be. In terms of close ups and character-centric moments, there's not as much blur involved with those shots. When items get closer, they seem to be a little easier to watch without the glasses on, especially moments where the Boss Baby himself comes into center frame.
For all of the fantastic visuals that The Boss Baby packs its film with, there are still a couple of shots here and there that wonk out the viewer's eyes. One example is a particularly jarring angle of a staircase discussion scene, which wears on the eyes when it tilts the angle of the scene. But besides slight moments such as this, The Boss Baby is not going to make you toss your cookies in the theater. Not even when it goes into its high speed backyard chase scene.
If you're going to see The Boss Baby, the 3D visuals just might make it worth a trip to the theater for you. The film is visually interesting enough to spend a couple extra bucks, and duck all of the Nerf darts heading your way. Alas, there's still a couple of factors that slip a bit, as the audience health is impacted by some wonky shots and lack of brightness. Still, if you're looking for something to feed to your eyes, The Boss Baby is a sugary treat you can dive into, face first.
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