Movie Review: Office Christmas Party

Yes/No Films movie review: Office Christmas Party

Office Christmas Party looked very funny in its trailer, which always worries me, because sometimes that means that the funniest parts of the movie are all used up in in the trailer. In this case, that mostly turned out to be true, and it's a comedy that doesn't warrant being seen in the theater.

Josh (Jason Bateman) works at a tech company, Zenotek, and his good friend Clay (T.J. Miller) runs the company; the branch was given to him to run from his dad, who recently passed away. Clay's sister, the ruthless Carol (Jennifer Aniston), arrives in town one day and tells Clay that his branch is underperforming, and that unless they land a big account, he has to lay off 40 percent of his staff. Enter Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance), with a $14 million deal that Josh, Tracey (Olivia Munn), and Clay must land. Against Carol's wishes, the three of them decide to throw an epic office Christmas party and invite Walter, though the consequences of this party later turn out to be worse than they could have imagined.

The cast here was great, between Bateman, Miller, Aniston, Vance, Munn, and other supporting actors, such as Rob Corddry, Randall Park, Karan Soni, Vanessa Bayer, and Jillian Bell. Kate McKinnon as a straight-laced HR worker was actually my favorite - she definitely stole all of the scenes she was in. McKinnon always looks like she's one laugh away from breaking character, and her character was hilarious here. I didn't buy Miller and Aniston as siblings, though - in real life, they're 12 years apart, and although some of their antics were funny (Aniston pinning Miller to the floor, all while wearing a blouse and skirt, aka office attire, so she could give her little brother some grief), most were not.

Maybe see this movie. My advice is to wait for Blu-ray/DVD - although some scenes were funny, most of them were not, and the film was less funnier as a whole than I wanted it to be. I'm surprised so many A-listers attached themselves to this movie, actually, based on the dialogue/plot, when there are probably funnier projects that they could have joined instead.

Office Christmas Party is currently playing in theaters, and is rated R with a runtime of 105 minutes. 2.5 stars out of 5.


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