Office Christmas Party is, amazingly enough, a movie about an office Christmas Party. It’s a comedy with a great cast of comedic actors such as: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, TJ Miller, Kate McKinnon, Rob Corddry, Vanessa Bayer, and Jillian Bell (Courtney B. Vance too but not really known as a comedian). So can such a rich cast of funny people put together a great holiday comedy? Well… no not really.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t laughs in the movie… there are, especially in the first half. But the movie insists upon having this flabby, rambling plot that isn’t helped by the script and some rather lazy, low-effort film making. I think the actors do their best to insert some comedy so any enjoyment I got probably came from them improvising since the script and film makers certainly weren’t trying.
But it’s not a terrible movie… like I said, I laughed and that’s kind of important in a comedy. If they’d cut about thirty minutes out of it and just been an office Christmas party without the extra plot complexities, it’d have been a crisp funny time.
So, yeah, maybe see it or not. I wouldn’t rush out but if it’s on Netflix in a few months and your bored, it’s a good enough watch.
Score: 76