Written by Logan J. Fowler and Justin Matchick
Release Date: December 9th, 2016
Starring: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Kate McKinnon, T.J. Miller, Olivia Munn, Rob Corddry
Directors: Josh Gordon and Will Speck (Blades of Glory, The Switch)
Pre-Trailer Thoughts: Nipping at the heels of last year’s raunchy Christmas comedy The Night Before, Office Christmas Party seems to be the next in line for the R rated holiday movie filled with non family friendly shenanigans. The cast involved is super impressive, and as a huge fan of unleashed Jason Bateman, I have hope for this. But will it be able to stand alongside the more vulgar classic X-Mas films of yesteryear, like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? -LJF
Pre-Trailer Thoughts: Holiday comedy movies are usually hit or miss. For every Home Alone and Christmas Vacation there’s an equal number of Surviving Christmas and Four Christmases. This comes from the same team that worked on the decent Blades of Glory and the dreadful The Switch so it will be interesting to see how they fare this time around. – JTM
Rate the Trailer: 2 out of 5. Not much here to get a laugh out of me, but I’m hoping that the best stuff is still on hold for the main event. I can’t even fathom this cast being wasted, so there’s got to be more we just aren’t seeing. I had a good time with the director’s previous film, Blades of Glory, which was silly, stupid, fun. Here’s wishing for that same kind of vibe.
-LJF
Rate the Trailer: 1 out of 5. I like T.J. Miller, I like Kate McKinnon, I like Jason Bateman, but this just looks dire. I know a lot of comedies get flak for “putting all the good jokes in the trailers”, but I really wish they had just gone ahead and done that here. That is, unless these really are the best jokes the movie has to offer, in which case this will be even worse than I thought. Something about the “crazy party” genre of comedy just does not appeal to me at all, and this further solidifies that. – JTM
Theater, Rent, No Thanks, Undecided? Theater. It may be risky, but I think this will be at least moderately entertaining. I just hope I’m not disappointed. -LJF
Theater, Rent, Undecided, No Thanks? No Thanks. Why spend the money to see this when I can watch any number of actually funny Christmas comedy movies from the comfort of my own home? – JTM
