'Office Christmas Party' Review

When interim CEO Carol Vanstone (Jennifer Aniston) tries to close down her brother Clay's (TJ Miller) branch down, he is given an ultimatum. Clay has to seal a potential client before Christmas. To do so, he requires the help of Josh (Jason Bateman) as well as other members of the workforce to throw a wild Christmas party to seal the deal.

'Office Christmas Party' gathers up a fairly impressive ensemble cast, with some of the individual performances being the saving grace of the film. Jennifer Aniston is fantastic in her role where she takes no crap from anybody. Aniston's character is brutal, bringing some of the films best moments with her cynicism. Kate McKinnon continues to impress me as she got funnier as the film went on. TJ Miller also shines as the man-child boss who just wants to have fun and be like his father. Courtney B Vance is up there with Aniston for the best performance as he goes all out in this film. Once he is allowed to let loose, he truly does so delivering very well. The cast features some other members who do fine in their roles but nothing spectacular like Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. The two do are fairly grounded though compared to everyone else which was a fairly good contrast. 

Although there are some good characters that really help the film, there are a few that are so bad that they really hurt this film. Rob Corddry had no good moments in this film as all he did was scream random things that were painfully unfunny. The film continued to do this which made it hard to watch at times. There are a couple of others but I feel that they were given the short end of the stick when it came to some of the writing of the film that gave them no chance. And that is what holds this film from being a good comedy. The jokes and story aren't consistent enough to sustain a feature-length movie. The film has its moments for sure but there isn't anything that really stands out. There are a lot of poor moments throughout the film which balances out the good. 

The antics in the film most certainly are fairly wild but if you have seen the trailer, you have seen the main bulk of them. The scenes in the trailer such as trying to swing from the lights and the vending machine are about as wild as the party gets. The film wants to throw the most kick-ass Christmas party but it just doesn't seem that fun. You don't sit there in the audience like "I wish my work would do something like that" like the film hopes you would. Mainly because most of the things are highly illegal which gives no stakes to the film. You don't believe that anything will end up turning bad due to what has happened throughout the film. Even from early on, we see that these characters can just do what they want without consequence. This doesn't help the film as you know everything will just fall into place. 

In saying that, the film isn't boring and is fairly entertaining. Is this a new Christmas Classic? No, but it is an adequate comedy that will bring some laughs and is a good watch just for switching your brain off. There are aspects to enjoy throughout the film and it is nowhere near as bad as most of the comedies this year. It's not one to rush out and see but possibly give it a chance when it appears on TV.

Final Verdict = 

So have you seen 'Office Christmas Party'? If so, what did you think of the film? I hope that this review was useful for if you were planning on seeing the movie. Once again, thank you for taking the time to read my review, it is much appreciated!

By Angus McGregor

'Mother's Day' Review

From the creator of 'Pretty Woman' and 'Valentines Day' comes 'Mother's Day'. Maybe its just cause I'm in the UK but do many people do such extravagant things on this day?

Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is a single mom whose troubles are made worse when she finds out that her ex-husband is marrying a hot twenty-something. Meanwhile her friend Jesse (Kate Hudson) continues to refuse to tell her family that she has a family with a man of South Asian descent as her sister also doesn't let it be known that she has a lesbian life partner. Bradley (Jason Sudekis) is a widower who now has to try and raise his two daughters on his own whilst dealing with the loss of his wife. Miranda (Julia Roberts) is a well known personality and author who chose a career over a family which led her to give up her daughter. Kristin (Britt Robertson), Miranda's daughter now has abandonment issues and won't allow the father of her child Zak (Jack Whitehall) to marry her until she deals with it.

As you can see from that synopsis, you can see that it is a pretty filled to the brim film. And this does really hurt the film as it tries to give each of the characters their fair share of screen time. The characters are thrown in and out of the film so much that you struggle to grow to care about any of them really as the disappear for large chunks of the film. A lot of the main focus seems to be on Jesse's (Hudson) family full of insecure adults who struggle to be able to come clean about their true and harmless lives. The family aren't the greatest people in the world which doesn't really want you to see as much of them.  Most of the jokes throughout the parts of the film with this family are borderline offensive especially with the only minority being the target of racial stereotypes to make the parents seem charming.

This also doesn't allow the likeable actors and actresses to shine like they should. I've enjoyed previous films with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudekis and this film really disappointed me with how it used them. It hinted in the trailer that they would come together but it just drops it entirely until the ending. I would have liked to have seen more focus on this story as they were easily likeable and much more entertaining to watch. They could've scrapped everything else and made this just as a romantic comedy with an interesting premise of the two coming together with their past experiences and both sets of children. However they decided to go with more stories which became overcrowded very easily.

The films main purpose looks to celebrate motherhood. However the mothers in this film are just complaining the whole time and we only see one time where a mother does something that is actually good. They don't do anything that is worth celebrating. One doesn't let their family know of their child. One abandons her child at birth. One wants to look better than her ex rather than just being a good mother. And the worst one is racist. So not exactly making these mothers worth celebrating to be perfectly honest.

When I was in the cinema seeing a pre screening of this movie, it was filled with casual viewers and has been one of the most packed of the Cineworld Unlimited screenings I've been to. And for the most part, the audience seemed to really love it. They were laughing out loud quite a lot. However this really wasn't the case for me. I seemed to be the only one not having a good time which seems to have been the case for most comedies this year. The jokes really aren't that great as they mainly try to shock you but they end up failing. This is mainly down to the writing with a lot of the characters having some terrible dialogue. I hope Jack Whitehall didn't write his own stand up routine in this film as it was way below his standard.

Final Verdict = 

'Mother's Day' really isn't that great of a film as it spends too much time focusing on some awful characters. Some terrible writing doesn't help this film at all either. However it has been proven to me that some may really enjoy this but unfortunately wasn't really the case for me.

So have you seen 'Mother's Day'? If so what did you think of it? I hope you enjoyed this review and if you go see this film, I hope you enjoy it more than I did! Once again thank you for reading my review, it is much appreciated!

By Angus McGregor