“Office Christmas Party”

LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

It’s easy to get suckered in by “Office Christmas Party,” a movie with a who’s who cast of accomplished comic actors and a fun sounding holiday theme. You’ll want to buy a ticket because you expect laugh-a-minute escape. Don’t. This dreadful, unfunny ‘comedy’ is one of the worst movies of the year.

When obnoxiously uptight tech company CEO Carol (Jennifer Aniston) decides to shut down the underperforming branch run by her flaky brother Clay (T.J.Miller), he rallies the troops to host the Christmas party to end all Christmas parties in an attempt to close a deal that will save everyone’s jobs. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that mayhem quickly ensues, and the epic party rapidly spirals totally out of hand. This movie feels like nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for the filmmakers to set up shop and throw an epic party with a huge studio budget.

Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn, two actors who are obviously hell-bent on proving that they’ll do anything for a paycheck, play office lovebirds is the most completely awkward, ill-fitting way possible. I never once believed their romantic inclinations and instead saw two people who were super uncomfortable to even be in the same room together.

Rob Corddry and Vanessa Bayer are wasted and confined to irritating supporting roles, akin to being punished by being made to sit in the corner for trying too hard at making goofy faces. The usually amusing Jillian Bell is far off her game as a two-faced pimp and Courtney B. Vance would probably like to forget everything he is forced to do in this movie.

Kate McKinnon, god bless her, is the only saving grace in this film — but even she can’t make jokes about parrot secretions and HR handbook violations funny enough to warrant more than a few polite chuckles.

This movie is altogether dreadful, rotten, and is stuffed with lame, stale jokes that continuously fall flat. All you need to know about the quality of the jokes here is that the funniest bit is a one-liner about farting and cheese.

There’s absolutely zero reason for this movie to exist. It has no point, it’s grossly uninteresting, the actors have no chemistry, and the plot is paper thin. This party is one big, boring yawn, and I sure wish I had turned down my invitation before it was too late.