Office Christmas Party Review

Office Christmas Party is another one of those party like everything depends on it movies with a heavy focus on comedy and that largely works for it. Josh (Jason Bateman) mostly runs the entire tech branch where he works while his eccentric boss Clay (T.J. Miller) plays around.

Things get serious when Clay's sister Carol (Jennifer Aniston) comes in as the incredibly serious boss and threatens the loss of jobs or even the branch closing if things don't change fast. This leads the core team to work together in order to close a deal with a potential client that could save the company. Things obviously don't go entirely well at their initial meeting, but they decide that throwing an epic old school party could change his mind.

That's the core concept at play here though there's just a ton of separate story lines going on. Not all of them reach any sort of definite ends and most are side gags with it getting overwhelming at times. The movie also seems as though it's all over the place, lacking a certain focus or tying together the pile of people partying.

Story aside it does provide some great laughs that pleased the audience while also being highly entertaining. There's also a great variety within the comedy by having so many random great comedians come in for smaller parts.

It would have been nice to see more of these come together in a coherent way that wasn't just overly cheerful by the end, but I found many sections hilarious so it hit the right spots. I also wanted to mention some side characters since there were so many of them filling every inch of the film.

Kate McKinnon was the office's HR employee playing a strict and creepy individual which she absolutely nailed here providing some solid laughs. Jillian Bell was a crazy pimp that could go from zero to a hundred real quick having some golden moments whereas Randall Park came across as overly creepy and cringy.

The Conclusion

The party was held together well by its strong leads with Bateman and T.J. Miller bringing the best comedic parts of the film. It's very crowded at times with too many stories going on, but that's fine when the purpose of a comedy is to provide laughs. There were certainly a lot to be had with the crowd being completely into it.

That should be the case when they're piling so many jokes per minute though some of it did fall a bit flat. Overall it was a great Christmas comedy that showcased a crazy office party with many strong moments of hilarity.

Office Christmas Party Review at Theater with Standard Viewing
Screening Provided by Paramount

Rating Overall: 6.8