The Boss Baby

This happens quite a lot with movies I only watch on a plane - they don't look good enough to see on release but actually end up being really good. I honestly thought this looked terrible from trailers, especially with such an ugly baby, and basically only watched it because the main character Tim was adorable.

In fact this was a clever, sweet and well-made animation that probably deserves more recognition than it got...though I did see quite a few reaction images of the triplets online. 

One of the best factors here is that the premise gives a strong message to kids with new siblings - the whole premise stems from how 7-year-old Tim reacts to the new baby of his family getting more love from his parents. That jealousy is a good thing for kids in that position to get to discuss. 

There's a lot that surprised me here. Funny jokes and pop culture references to everything from Indiana Jones (brilliantly combined with Mouse Trap) to Glengarry Glen Ross. Poignant moments mostly marked by 'Blackbird' by the Beatles. Strong performances and fast-paced animation. There's a few adult jokes that raise a smile, like references to the things that can go on at work retreats, though in light of the recent scandals from Hollywood, I'm not sure having Alec Baldwin and a child actor have an exchange along the lines of 'Suck it!' 'I'm not gonna suck that, I don't know where it's been.' 'You want to find out where babies come from, don't you?' was probably not the best idea. And they almost cast Kevin Spacey in the movie too… 

Tim is one of the most adorable kids in CG - being younger than most of the kids in these films, he's adorable, needing his hand held on the plane and not knowing how to ride a bike. Ralph Bakshi’s grandson Miles gives a pretty adorable performance, too, playing younger than his age during recording. Perhaps the best element having such a young protagonist is that being so concerned with the imagination of a child, there are lots of sequences that experiment with changes of animation style or weird character designs, which really take advantage of the medium. 

I doubt that many people will give this film a chance, but that's a shame because it's much better than I'd anticipated. 

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

I hadn’t actually seen any of the other Madagascar films before seeing this. They never had any particular appeal – the art style struck me as a very expensive and laborious way of making creatures look ugly and plastic, and it all seemed a bit of an Ice Age mark 2, without any unique Dreamworks spin. Not that I have ever been particularly interested in Ice Age.

But I had a bit of interest in Madagascar 3. Perhaps it was in part thanks to the viral power of the silly ‘Afro Circus’ song – especially mashed up with things like Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ – which was probably all a forced marketing campaign but still worked neatly. It looked entertaining, if mindless and stereotype-driven.

And it was mindless and stereotype-driven, but that was no big issue. It was fun, and the ending was both more spectacular and cleverer than I had ever expected. I loved the overblown circus spectaculars and I loved the way once the main characters got what they wanted, they realized it really wasn’t what they imagined, or worth leaving behind what they had. The new characters got the bare minimum of development – except maybe the brilliant sea lion Stefano – but it was expertly done so that they were likeable and I cared about them, while the rapport between the central characters – well, I don’t know if it was that way from the start or something that developed, but the rapport between them was great. It’s an unlikely collection of voice actors – is it the only thing David Schwimmer is doing these days? – but sometimes throwing a group of unlikely companions together is exactly what works best.

As for what I said about the aesthetic being a very expensive way to look ugly, that’s really limited to character designs, and though they’re generic and not especially appealing, they do also manage the feat of imprinting themselves incredibly quickly and indelibly on the consciousness, and once there are unforgettable.

There’s not a lot at stake here, and the storyline written on paper is pretty dull, relying on the bouncing between two plots – the animals try to pass as circus performers while a crazy animal control officer hunts them – but the two are juggled deftly and the combination of acrobatics, bright colours and attractive locales including Monaco and London keep the piece engaging until the end. In short, nothing that will change lives or stun audiences by being wildly different from expectations, but well-written, funny and pleasant to look at. I would not be averse to checking out the previous films now, nor to spin-offs…though this would be a very neat way to end the main series, with the zoo animals finding their way back home and realizing that everything they’ve experienced on their journey means they no longer need it.