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Review of The Boss Baby (Hans Zimmer/Steve Mazzaro)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... for one magnificent cue contributed by Conrad Pope for the sentimental culmination of the film's plot, the remainder of the score a challengingly schizophrenic exercise in comedic micro-focusing.

Avoid it... unless you seek to use the music to intentionally make your neighbors' dogs howl, because it's difficult to imagine a large audience for this technically adept but nearly unlistenable parade of parodies.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Boss Baby: (Hans Zimmer/Steve Mazzaro) While ambitious in its attempt to interweave adult concepts of familial love with a juvenile abundance of toilet humor, 2017's The Boss Baby is arguably a unique Dreamworks development gone terribly astray, yielding a marginal critical response but still endearing itself to audiences with enough affection to generate decent box office grosses and immediate sequel talk. At the core of the story is the desire for love from one's parents, but that narrative is wrapped into a conspiracy between corporate lobbying interests for the baby industry and the dog industry battling over the market for that love. A really solid story potentially resided in this concept, but director Tom McGrath's execution of the popular picture book ultimately catered to potty humor without remorse and offered a second half of action that failed to hold the intended messaging together. The failures of the haphazard script for The Boss Baby translate directly into a badly schizophrenic soundtrack that contains a few token song placements but is mostly guided by the Hans Zimmer machine of Remote Control Productions. Zimmer is a Dreamworks veteran, and his collectors will recall that some of his most emotionally engaging music in the 2000's and 2010's has existed for the animated genre. His involvement always entails a collaboration with one of his usual Remote Control crew members, however, and for The Boss Baby that lucky soul is Steve Mazzaro, who has contributed additional music to several Zimmer-led blockbuster scores in recent years but has seldom received major, acknowledged credit. In projects such as this one, there is always the hope that the Zimmer ghostwriter in question will be able to prove himself the next John Powell or Lorne Balfe. There remains no clear documentation about the balance of duties between Zimmer and Mazzaro, an ongoing, significant problem with attribution caused by Zimmer's methodology. There are moments that remind strongly of vintage Zimmer sensibility, including the stomping, theremin-laced Sergei Prokofiev rip in "Baby Brother" that harkens back to Toys. But the personality of the score for The Boss Baby is so outrageously unfocused that it's impossible to assign likely attributions outside of one obvious cue by guest composer Conrad Pope. It's typical to say that these frenetic animation scores are difficult to swallow on album, but this one is so twitchy and anchorless that it's an especially challenging prospect, especially if you have screaming kids in your household already.

One of the ways to distinguish a master animated film score writer is by measuring the work's accessibility on album, an area in which Powell and Balfe have proven their chops multiple times. Certainly, much of The Boss Baby conveys similar intelligence in its technical prowess, and its ability to maneuver through its thematic core for so many genre adaptations is smartly conveyed, but the overall narrative lacks any sense of genuine care. The performing ensemble is as broad as anyone could expect, the orchestra and choir joined by jazz and funk bands and a slew of soloists to yield a wild sonic variation that begs for fanatical shifts in demeanor, meter, and volume at countless abrupt turns, sometimes half a dozen in quantity within one cue. Aside from a few culminating statements of the score's main theme, as in the Randy Newmanesque, finger-snapping "Go Get Yourself a Horse," the score doesn't achieve a solid connection with the listener as it tries too hard to overplay its hand in each individual moment. The main theme for the titular character and secondary identities for the evil puppy-pushing entity and others are faithfully developed. You'll hear everything from Danny Elfman's Catwoman theme to Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" among a nearly exhausting conveyor belt of mostly transparent parodies of classical standards. The moments of orchestral and choral awe, climaxing in "Upsies! I Need Upsies!," are too short, sending you in search of extended performances of snazzy jazz renditions of the main theme to appreciate. In the end, the only really memorable moment in The Boss Baby comes courtesy of veteran orchestrator Conrad Pope, who was called into the project late to write and conduct the "Love" cue because the scene's requirement for overly romantic classical tones had eluded the Remote Control team. While arguably borrowing much from the style of Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2, known by film music enthusiasts for its insertion in Alien and John Williams' plundering of it in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Pope works wonders to shift the Zimmer and Mazzaro thematic core into overflowing Golden Age sentimentality, and it stands out magnificently from the rest of the otherwise tiring parody score. That remainder of the soundtrack is a head-spinning exercise in lunacy, one requiring a mood for the absolute most frenetic children's comedy scores. All of the music is recorded beautifully, with crisp and deep presentations of especially the orchestral players throughout. But don't expect this music to compete with Megamind or the Kung Fu Panda scores by most measures. Seek the one lovely and lengthy Pope cue and leave the rest of the score to howling dogs.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 66:49

• 1. Survival of the Fittest (2:24) • 2. Baby Brother (3:58) • 3. Welcome to Baby Corp (3:12) • 4. You Can't Get Away From Johnny Law (2:11) • 5. We Can Buy a Bouncy House (3:18) • 6. Super Colossal Big Fat Boss Baby (1:11) • 7. Barfmitzvah (2:11) • 8. Toodaloo Toilet-Head! (4:02) • 9. I Wish You Were Never Born (2:53) • 10. Puppy Co. (3:27) • 11. You Want to Hug Me, Don't You? (3:20) • 12. Arrrggh (2:01) • 13. Francis Francis (4:19) • 14. You're Fired (4:28) • 15. Upsies! I Need Upsies! (1:44) • 16. Love* (5:17) • 17. Go Get Yourself a Horse (2:19) • 18. What the World Needs Now is Love - performed by Missi Hale (4:15) • 19. Cheek to Cheek (From the Motion Picture "Top Hat") - performed by Fred Astaire (5:01) • 20. (Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again - performed by L.T.D. (4:40)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes extensive lists of performers but no extra information about the score or film.

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