Summary
Netflix continue to underexploit their interactive potential with another kiddie-focused offering in The Boss Baby: Get That Baby!, which runs the nippers through a virtual workplace simulator.
When I reviewed The Boss Baby back in the day, I can’t say I imagined it’d find success as a series on Netflix. But The Boss Baby: Back in Business, part of Netflix’s deal with Dreamworks, has been a three-season hit, and it’s on that license that the new interactive special The Boss Baby: Get That Baby! is based. The interactive film functions as a VR training simulator for the heavenly dispensary Baby Corp, with viewers trying out the company’s various roles and figuring out what’s right for them based on simplistic binary choices.
There’s little to write home about here. It’s firmly pitched at the kids, and more specifically at existing fans of the series, the voice cast of which reprise their roles as various fan-favorite characters – Boss Baby, Jimbo, Staci, et al – who crop up as viewers navigate the various departments. The decisions are simplistic yes-no, this-that affairs and the dialogue actively encourages you to go back and see what the other option yielded, which should hopefully keep kids busy for a while. That, at least, is a mercy.
That’s the only one, though. Coming not long after Carmen Sandiego did a very similar thing, The Boss Baby: Get That Baby! doesn’t feel particularly new even by these standards, and also works as a reminder of the potential of this technology that Netflix seems so determined not to exploit. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a hit, yet the streaming giant has barely touched anything of that sort since – the next planned interactive project at the Big N is Last Kids on Earth, another kid-centric property, so it doesn’t look like that pattern will be changing any time soon.
Nevertheless, if your kids are into the show and need something to tide them over until they get confirmation of a fourth season, this’ll do as a distraction. Just.
