BEFORE: It's been over three weeks since I've watched a movie, which is an odd feeling. Of course, it's necessary at this time of year to devote my attention to other things, like Christmas shopping and getting my holiday mix CD in order, mailing out Christmas cards and such. So I was definitely in need of a cinematic break - I did most of those things in preparation for the holidays, like my wife and I each took a day off and we drove out to the outlet stores on Long Island and got about 90% of the shopping done in a five-hour marathon. Also, 2/3 of my holiday cards are now in the mail, so I can relax a bit and turn my attention back to movies for a night.
But why THIS day? There's still a week until Christmas, so why get back into it now? Ah, this WOULD have been the day for my office's christmas party, if we were having one this year. But everyone is too busy, the studio's in the middle of three projects, and I'm trying to finish sending the rewards out for TWO Kickstarter campaigns. Plus nobody wants to move everything around and clean up at the studio, so it looks like it's just not happening this year. C'est la vie - but since this is where it would have fallen, I'll watch this film as a poor substitute for the real thing.
Vanessa Bayer carries over from "The Polka King".
THE PLOT: When his uptight CEO sister threatens to shut down his branch, the branch manager throws an epic Christmas party in order to land a big client and save the day, but the party gets way out of hand.
AFTER: This is a film that manages to spew comedy in every direction at once, without ever taking the time to consider if there should be some kind of overall coherent plan for doing so. There are dozens of plot points that go absolutely nowhere, like people can't seem to decide if having an office party is a good idea or a bad idea, even after it's already started. Is drinking good or is drinking bad? Yes and yes. Is having sex at an office party allowed, or forbidden, a good idea or a bad idea? Again, it's yes and yes. If it feels good, do it, also if it feels bad you might want to give it a go. What? Can we get some order up in here? Apparently not, chaos reigns and it's not giving up its throne.
Even a wild comedy has to have one foot in reality - like "Beerfest" or "Animal House", two films that are famous for their partying scenes. "Beerfest" had some very improbable drinking games, but people DO play beer pong and quarters and thumper in real life, so there was at least a starting point to launch the humor from. And the toga party in "Animal House" came from real frat parties that took place at Dartmouth. Sure, companies have office Christmas parties, but this film only has like half of a toenail in reality, and everything is far-fetched to try to depict the "ultimate" holiday extravaganza, to the point where it then doesn't resemble reality at all.
Instead we get a bunch of corporate types who are aware of the new sexual harassment policies, but when push comes to shove, it turns out that everyone's just a few drinks away from participating in a drug-fueled orgy with their co-workers. That's it, people have only two modes - everyday workmate and debauched party beast, and there's no in-between. There's a competent comedy to be made someday about office parties in the enlightened New Millennium, but this just isn't it.
It also bothers me that the humor is so obvious, it never gets down below the surface level. The writers have decided who the characters are, and this dictates how they will act - there's no attempt at exposition, character growth or any kind of deeper meaning to anything, it just IS, and that's simply not enough. The boss is an incompetent man-child, his sister is a shrewish CEO, and tech workers are either super-nerds or boasting douchebags. The head of HR is an uptight, prudish spinster, because that's what the script needs her to be, but even she's lucky, because all we know about the lead male character is that he's recently divorced, and mostly runs the company's operations for his incompetent boss. That's all we know about him, otherwise he's a complete blank - what are his goals, his aspirations, his motivations? I have no clue, because nobody thought along these lines.
You can also see similar character problems on the recent re-boots of "Murphy Brown" and "The Conners" - there's no attempt to get below the surface of any of the characters. Murphy Brown is a liberal, therefore she hates the President, and says liberally liberal things and takes up an automatic liberal position on EVERY issue - meanwhile hating the conservative pundits for doing exactly the same thing. (Meanwhile, aren't good reporters supposed to be impartial?) And she and her news team do things on a morning news show that just wouldn't happen on a real show, and her son works for a rival network and does other things in ways that real reporters wouldn't do them. And everyone on the "Roseanne" spin-off is now a caricature, from the uptight, neurotic divorced Darlene to the drunk, pregnant Becky to the grieving widower Dan. Laurie Metcalf's doing the best she can with the Jackie character, but a recent episode had her living like a medieval serf for some kind of thesis that her boyfriend was writing, and that's really straining the bounds of credulity. Nobody would DO that, so it's clear that the show has run off the rails once again.
Similarly, it's clear that the screenwriters of "Office Christmas Party" couldn't bring themselves to do much research, like attend some real tech company's Christmas party to see what takes place there. Why bother, when the resulting fictional tale already has key plot points that are set in stone? In a post-"Hangover", post-"Horrible Bosses" world, things need to spiral out of control terribly, and send the key players across the city, late at night, to interact with the criminal element. But this feels all improbably shoe-horned in here. Compare this to a show like "Silicon Valley", which is also about a tech company, and even though I've never watched it, I can easily believe that its humor comes from a more honest, believable place.
NP: It almost goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway - where were the police? Wouldn't a disaster of an office party at this magnitude (bonfires, extremely loud music, drugs, etc.) have attracted the attention of the authorities? Then we've got people pushing large pieces of computer equipment out of a skyscraper window, to land somewhere on the downtown Chicago streets, and that's dangerous to pedestrians and property - wouldn't that have prompted an immediate investigation? Plus, early in the party, there's an injury and someone leaves in an ambulance - the EMT's probably should have alerted the police that there was an out-of-control party, and that should have been the end of things. But then I guess the movie would have been very short.
NP 2: Tangential to this, there was security in the building, but since the film is firing in every plot direction at the same time, the script can't decide if the security guard character is competent or not, sane or off-balanced. At one point we see her gift-wrapping a large hunting knife, which suggests that there's something not right about her, but when the script later needs someone to break up the party, she's right there with her taser to bring some semblance of order. But then, wasn't it her responsibility to allow access to only the right people in the first place? How did the party get out of control with a bunch of random strangers, if someone was in the lobby dictating who should get in? The question remains - was she competent or not? Like on many other points, the film can't seem to decide. They make a point early in the film of telling us that access to the elevators is controlled by new, more secure turnstiles, a fact that gets forgotten about 30 minutes later when random street people can get in to the party.
NP 3: Then we've got the cost of this giant holiday extravaganza, from the disco-lights floor to the DJ booth to the actual reindeer, not to mention floodlights, the manger scene rental, food, alcohol, etc. And this was supposed to be somehow better than giving out bonuses? Most of the employees would probably have preferred a small bonus to a large party. Oh, right, this was all done to LAND a new client - but still, where did the money come from? Any company of this size would probably have a ton of requisition forms to fill out to spend this much on anything, so by the time the corporate wheels would turn, Christmas would be over - it would be impossible for anyone to put this all together at the last minute, anyway. You'd imagine that all the catering companies and DJs would be booked up all December, right? And conveniently, this branch has been profitable enough to throw a big party, but not profitable enough to risk closure by the CEO. Yeah, sure.
NP 4: They needed to wrap this up somehow, even though the action moved away from the office party itself, and got lost somewhere on the streets of Chicago. So they go back to this notion of the "anywhere internet" invention, in order to have something that saves both the emergency and the company - but again, it's far from believable because nobody knows how the internet or wi-fi works, especially the screenwriters, who think that an invention could somehow exist just one algorithm away from being workable. Also, if you say the right thing to an inventor on the right day, you'll trigger something in their brain that will somehow solve the theoretical problem they've been unable to fix. I have a hunch that this isn't how the internet, coding, or even inventing works.
NP 5: As the worst example of "random comedy chaos", the male and female lead characters are encouraged to "do that thing you did at last year's party" - which apparently is to just wear some bulky snowman costumes, get out on the dance floor, and.... do what, exactly? Flail their arms in a random direction? There's no planned choreography, either in the film or IRL, there's no song, special music for this? It's one of several dozen gags that gets hyped up here (see also - the bit with the 3-D printer, the bird cages in the car, the young boy with the iPad and the cameo from the NBA star), and then there's just no follow-through. No pay-off. What a waste of everyone's time.
Also starring Jason Bateman (last seen in "The Family Fang"), Olivia Munn (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), T.J. Miller (last seen in "Goon: Last of the Enforcers"), Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Mother's Day"), Kate McKinnon (last seen in "Masterminds"), Jillian Bell (last seen in "Goosebumps"), Courtney B. Vance (last seen in "The Mummy"), Rob Corddry (last seen in "Butter"), Karan Soni (also last seen in "Goosebumps"), Sam Richardson (last seen in "The House"), Randall Park (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Abbey Lee (last seen in "Gods of Egypt"), Jamie Chung (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (last seen in "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn"), Fortune Feimster, Matt Walsh (last seen in "Keeping Up with the Joneses"), Ben Falcone (last seen in "Spy"), Chloe Wepper, Oliver Cooper (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Adrian Martinez (last seen in "Casa de mi Padre"), Erick Chavarria (last seen in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday"), Andrew Leeds, Jimmy Butler.
RATING: 3 out of 10 lewd ice sculptures
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