La festa prima delle feste

I understand why people might be down on this movie but I really enjoyed it. It had the right elements of the great party comedy. Great cast. Great party. Maybe I really enjoyed it because I was drinking along with it and wanted it to be good. But is that such a problem to have? It did feel like it couldn't quite hit the punchline as well as I wanted it to. But if you want to have fun with it you will.

It is a few days to Christmas but you wouldn't really know it at the Chicago branch of Zenotec. Due to political correctness and the overzealousness of HR, there is very little in the way of celebrations. A quiet get-together is arranged but this is cancelled when the uptight, money-is-everything CEO (who happens to be the branch manager's sister) puts the kibosh on it. She also intends to retrench 40% of the staff at the branch. In a last ditch attempt to save the staff their jobs, the branch manager tries to land a major client. In order to show the client that they're not cold and uncaring, he (without his sister knowing) throws a huge Christmas party, and invites the client. Things could get rather festive, as long as HR don't have anything to do with it...

Funny and fun. I had low expectations for this movie. It looked a lot like the silly sort of thing that Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and/or James Franco would appear in. The fact that it starred Jason Bateman (and not Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill or James Franco) gave me some hope and from the beginning, the hope was vindicated.

Turns out the humour is quite irreverent and non-PC, even anti-PC, (just the way I like it) and reasonably clever in that regard. Definitely not a movie for the easily offended, especially find-an-offense types (even more reason to like it).

It does get a bit predictable and silly towards the end but the first act was excellent and if that sort of quality had been maintained this could have been a classic comedy.

Good for a laugh, plus for pointing out how stupid companies (and individuals) have gotten in their aversion to Christmas celebrations.

I just finished watching Office Christmas Party without reading the reviews first. And now that I just read a couple pages of reviews I realize once again that there are a whole lot of humorless people walking on this planet. Not that it is the greatest comedy ever, far from that, but there are for sure enough sequences to make you have a good time. I just wonder what does make those negative reviewers laugh. Probably nothing. There are a lot of people that just never laugh, never have any fun in their pretty boring lives. I'm so lucky my wife has the same sense of humor as me, so that we have fun every day of the year. The story in the movie is not to be taken serious because it's just a comedy. Maybe with some stupid humor but it's still way better then a lot of other comedies. Kate McKinnon made me laugh the most, but the other comedians all added their bit as well to make it an enjoyable comedy to watch. Just don't expect too much of the story because it's not the point to have a great story, it's just about the fun.

I dreaded seeing this. My daughter rents many videos on Redbox, but we consistently shot her down when she would bring this one up to rent. She finally rented it anyway. We sat down to watch it and I was ready to just play games on my phone until it was over. I was pleasantly surprised. It was not as bad as the reviews would lead you to believe. Comedy is a very relative, personal thing. What someone finds funny, someone else would not. I have strange taste in comedy. I like physical, silly comedies, but also intelligent satire, I'm kind of all over the map when it comes to what makes me laugh. This one, about a software company on the brink of failure, was pretty good. I laughed several times. It was a little long for a comedy, I feel they could have edited some scenes better. Two hours is too long for most movies, especially a comedy. I liked most of the characters and thought they did well with the script they were given. It's not rocket science, but it was entertaining and I'm glad she rented it.

I was looking to watch a funny Christmas movie that isn't Elf or A Christmas Story so I gave this a chance since I really like Jason Bateman and I can say I was entertained throughout the whole thing. It's not the greatest movie ever but it checked the boxes I was looking for while watching. It's definitely stupid humor but it gave me a few good laughs