Office Christmas Party

Starring: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T.J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Kate McKinnon, Courtney B. Vance, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry, Vanessa Bayer, Randall Park, Sam Richardson, Karan Soni, Jamie Chung, Ben Falcone
Directed by: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: To land a big client (Courtney B. Vance), a company throws an epic office Christmas party, which soon spiral out of control.

Review:

Tim: I guess we have to give this film some credit for a twist on the "party that gets out of control" subgenre of film. While we've seen that dozens of times before, I think an office Christmas party that gets out of control is fairly unique. That's not enough to make up for this film's flaws, but it's something.

It's interesting to see how Office Christmas Party took a very straightforward concept and tried to find enough material for a 1 hour, 45 minute movie. It doesn't succeed. The central storyline is at least somewhat plausible- a company throws the most epic Christmas party they can, because they believe that will land them a critical client and save their office. That's a bit of a stretch, but I can believe it. The whole thing spirals out of control (and not in the party way). We have all these subplots that do take up time, but add so little to the overall film. There's the whole technology app thing, which seemed completely made up and utterly ridiculous. I don't even know how feasible it would be in real life, because the face validity is nonexistent. It seemed like a totally fake, Hollywood idea for how to save that day. That part of the film was terrible and greatly hurt the film. Besides that, we have this whole drug dealer subplot that is only mildly entertaining. There's random office hookups and crushes that really didn't add much to the film. The whole thing just feels so unfocused and random, it creates a disjointed viewing experience. It really felt like the writers were just adding subplots to hit a specific run time. If you were trying to tell the best possible version of this story, I think you would have done a lot differently.

Jason Bateman is fine in the lead role. I still don't love the guy, but he has mastered the ability to be the straight man while craziness is happening all around him. I was actually stunned that I didn't hate Olivia Munn in this film. Her performance was actually decent. That shocked me to no end. T.J. Miller can always be counted on for bringing the humor. While I wish he was just a tad bit more restrained, he does create many of the film's genuine laughs. I loved seeing Courtney B. Vance in a bit of an unconventional role for him. Jennifer Aniston is playing the same against-type character as in Horrible Bosses, but he character is just dull in this one. We've seen this before, so it's lost any of its initial shock value. Jillian Bell was a waste of time. It felt like her part was expanded because people think she's funny, not because the story called for it. When decisions like that are made, you're not going to end up with a great product. Rob Corddry was too extreme, I never believed his character or his performance. I liked Randall Park (I almost always do) in a small role, and Karan Soni was pretty decent as well. Kate McKinnon continues to baffle me as to why anyone thinks she is talented or funny.

The biggest problem with Office Christmas Party is that there just isn't enough here to carry an entire film. The cast is really big, but even with all their subplots (most of which aren't great), it still feels like this movie had one idea and crammed as much as it could into the film to get over 90 minutes. Some of it is funny, most of it is not. It felt like the writers grew desperate and were just winging half baked ideas into this film. There's so many sequences that are just head-scratchers. The whole car chase/bridge jump thing, for example- was there any logical reason to include that? Did it really advance the story or help us understand the characters better? It was a ridiculous sequence that added very little to the film. There's a half dozen of those sprinkled throughout the film.

There's so many weak comedies that are made every year. This film might have had a decent premise, but the execution was lacking. It felt like the script had to be weak and too much freedom was given to the cast to improvise. That rarely works in making a great comedy. Office Christmas Party was decently funny, but as a whole, this isn't anything more than a forgettable, okay movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2, Bad Words, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates