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CORPORATE ANIMALS
Director: Patrick Brice Cast: Jessica Williams, Karan Soni, Demi Moore, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Martha Kelly, Dan Bakkedahl, Calum Worthy, Jennifer Kim, Nasim Pedrad, Ed Helms MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:26 Release Date: 9/20/19 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 19, 2019 A group of co-workers become trapped in a cave in Corporate Animals. The resulting movie plays like a feature-length bottle episode of a terrible sitcom. The central gag, besides the fact that none of the employees trust or particularly like each other, is that the group quickly runs out of food and has to resort to cannibalism to survive. That's the central gag only in that it takes place at the mid-point of the story, though. It's mostly about a group of annoying characters bickering and making jokes, only to eat their tour guide's corpse for a bit, have some weird hallucinations, and go right back to arguing and joking while their lives are at risk. The cast is pretty expansive, which means that writer Sam Bain and director Patrick Brice have very little time to establish any kind of distinct characteristics among the characters. Instead, they just set up a bunch of reasons for them to hate each other, which doesn't translate well to our own feelings for them. There's the boss Lucy (Demi Moore), who has an ego and a tough-as-nails manner with her employees, sending them into the advanced spelunking route during a team-building outing. Of primary importance are Jess (Jessica Williams) and Freddie (Karan Soni), both of whom believe they're about to be promoted to the same position. Everyone else is here to be miserable and angry, save for Aidan (Calum Worthy), who has a gaping leg wound that starts to talk in the voice of Britney Spears. Eventually, it comes to light that Lucy essentially has bankrupted the company, which gained some success from selling edible cutlery If they make it out, they might not have jobs. That's basically the gist of the story, which has the group trying to survive and occasionally escape, and the humor, which falls back on a lot of random jokes whenever the filmmakers figure that the fighting and the insulting and the eating of tour guide Brandon's (Ed Helms) body have grown a bit stale. They don't figure that out often, which is both unfortunate (because the shtick grows old quickly) and lucky (because the random humor feels desperate). Mercifully short but still stretched far beyond sustainability, Corporate Animals is a methodically tedious comedy. Even before the uselessly extended epilogue, it's clear that the filmmakers don't know how to quit when they're behind. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for pervasive language, sexual content, some gore and brief nudity)
