Review: 'The Boss Baby: Family Business' is a bland sequel that will tax most children's attention spans

It would be great to say that “The Boss Baby: Family Business” is a comedy masterpiece, or that it’s a steaming pile of garbage, or something more nuanced or expressive somewhere in between — but it’s none of those things.

No, this sequel to DreamWorks’ 2017 animated tale of a baby who’s really an undercover spy for a secret organization run by babies is even less than meets the eye. It’s a lackluster Hollywood “product,” with no more flavor or excitement than a spoonful of strained peas.

If you remember the 2017 “The Boss Baby,” it was for Alec Baldwin providing the voice of Ted, newly born little brother to 7-year-old Tim, who discovers that his baby brother is a latte-sipping executive type — sent by his company, BabyCorp, to learn what an evil rival corporation is doing.

The new movie starts years after the last movie, with Tim (now voiced by James Marsden) and Ted (still voiced by Baldwin) as estranged adults. Tim is a family man, with a wife, Carol (voiced by Eva Longoria), and overachieving daughter, Tabitha (voiced by Ariana Greenblatt). Ted is single, because who has time for family when you’re a super-successful CEO with a private helicopter. Tabitha idolizes Ted, while telling her own father that she’s too grown-up for his bedtime stories and other parental perks.

Who’s going to save this fractured family? That would be Tabitha’s new baby sister, Tina (voiced by Amy Sedaris) — who, like her Uncle Ted, is a BabyCorp agent. Tina is on a mission to uncover the nefarious plans of Dr. Irwin Armstrong (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), founder of the Acorn Academy charter schools, including the one whose rigorous academic discipline could, Tina says, destroy childhood forever.

Using a BabyCorp formula that reverts Tim and Ted to their ages in the first film, the brothers go undercover in Armstrong’s school — and discover a secret that could alter the world. Meanwhile, Tim in his kid form, also learns why Tabitha has become a raging stress ball who apparently forgot the importance of having fun.

Director Tom McGrath is an old hand at DreamWorks Animation — he directed “Megamind,” the first “Boss Baby,” and three “Madagascar” movies, and he voices Skipper in “The Penguins of Madagascar” — and there’s a rote familiarity in how he tackles what could be an off-the-wall story. While McGrath does apply a few colorful touches, mostly in Tim’s Thurber-esque flights of imagination while doing family chores, the result here is too bland to be worth sampling.

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‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’

★★

Opens Friday, July 2, in theaters, and streaming on Peacock (at a premium price). Rated PG for rude humor, mild language and some action. Running time: 107 minutes.