Office Christmas Party

I've always been a fan of the Christmas stoner comedy. Last year's The Night Before was a step above in terms of finding the original concept. With this one, I had high hopes. We've all been to corporate Christmas parties that are one step away from becoming actually enjoyable events and Office Christmas Party takes that to the extreme. However, it shoots itself in the foot by becoming too overcrowded with storylines that aren't at all funny.

The Chicago branch of tech company Zenotek has failed to show any growth in the last quarter, so acting CEO Carol Vanstone (Jennifer Aniston) has threatened to cut forty percent in order to make the branch profitable. She also wants to cancel the annual Christmas party as she considers it an unnecessary use of corporate funds. Her brother Clay (TJ Miller) doesn't want any of his workers to lose their jobs, so he enlists his Chief Technical Officer Josh (Jason Bateman) and his head of tech Tracey (Olivia Munn) to court businessman Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) into investing in the company. It turns out the only way to get him to do this is by throwing the best Christmas party ever.

As with all comedy movies, it really comes down to how well the actors are able to perform the jokes. That's the one thing that Office Christmas Party really has going for it. All of the major players have had a career built on performing comedy in one medium or another so there is no one dropping the ball. I've been really impressed with diversity that Jennifer Aniston has been showing in her comedic roles lately. They haven't just been the same thing over and over and her Grinch-esque Carol is a very fun character. I find TJ Miller can sometimes overshadow his costars with his over the top performances, but this time he shares the wealth, being the giving time of the year and all. Kate McKinnon's performance was wonderful as always and she is always able to find particular traits for her characters that are just bizarre and perfect. Despite Jason Bateman once again playing Jason Bateman, I am so comfortable with his character at this stage. He and Olivia Munn have great chemistry too.

The problem with this flick though is that it is way too crowded. Every character that is introduced is given too much character. There's no "here's this accountant character", instead we have to be shown that he has a weird baby fetish (Randall Park does at least try and make it funny). The characters also just end up as stereotypes of people you find in the office and that wears a bit thin quickly. There are too many plot strands as well. Instead of just having the main plot, there's also Jillian Bell's pimp character who is trying to steal everyone's money and something about wifi being accessed everywhere. While they all tie in at the end, the third part of the movie is just distracting and kind of boring.

This is a hard one. If you're a fan of movies like this, as I am, you'll watch it and think this better than you expected. If you wanted a light Christmas comedy, it's probably not for you. Office Christmas Party has a strange intense energy. It's laid on heavy with the jokes and (surprising) destruction with a good mix of hopeful and cynical characters.

X-Men: Apocalypse

I really enjoyed the last X-Men movie. The decision to go back and explore different stories with younger versions of the characters has ultimately paid off, but even by their own admission, the third movie is never as good. That last statement is a bit of a lie. While Apocalypse may not be a high point in the series, it's still a pretty awesome movie.

In a pretty exhilarating introduction in ancient Egypt, we see all-powerful mutant Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) get buried under a collapsed pyramid. In 1983, CIA agent Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne) witnesses his reawakening at the hands of a cult. Meanwhile in Poland, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is living a quiet life with his wife and daughter until the townspeople discover what he is. Elsewhere, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is off looking for mutants and comes across Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), whom she decides to take back to Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). It's at this point that Apocalypse reveals himself to the world with his plan to destroy everyone so he can start the world afresh.

Okay, so after writing out that plot it does sound like the movie doesn't have a lot going on for it. The plot of the movie does take a bit of a back seat, but don't worry, it's not sacrificed for the sake of action. Rather the focus of this movie is character development. Although the majority of characters who we've seen before have already been established, we do get a better insight into their personalities. For example, the psyche of Magneto is explored and we can further see how he is torn between being good and bad. The new characters who are introduced are also given similar inner conflicts. Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner) is shown to have an immense inner power that she is unable to control. This ties in nicely with the future we saw in X-Men: The Last Stand. 

The performances from the series regulars were solid as usual. The newbies however gave mixed performances. Kodi Smit-McPhee was a standout. He gave Nightcrawler the right amount of a comedic edge that helped lighten the dark mood throughout the film. That complemented the laughs given by Even Peters as Quicksilver well. Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp and Tye Sheridan came out okay, but they still need some more time to find their footing, which is okay with a franchise like this as they have plenty of time to do that. I was really disappointed with Oscar Isaac's performance because he is my favourite actor and he was misused so much in this film. I think it primarily had to do with the fact that the character of Apocalypse wasn't all that menacing for me and none of the power that he supposedly had came through.

I know it seems like I'm skirting around whether or not to say this movie is good or bad, but I have to commit to something. I guess I thought it was a little bit better than average, but the lacking plot and Superman level of destruction in the action sequence at the end dragged it down.

Mortdecai

As we are in the midst of awards season for movies, there seems to be an expectation that every movie that is released at the moment has to be better than the last and by doing so we forget that movies also serve as entertainment. Whilst David Koepp's Mortdecai may not win any Oscars, BAFTAs or Golden Globes, it is a very fun movie and I feel like I need to see a good fun one every once in a while.

Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is an aristocratic art dealer who has fallen on some financial hard times and is only days away from complete insolvency. After the murder of a painting restorer, he is enlisted by MI5 agent Inspector Martland (Ewan McGregor) to hunt down the killer. So with his trusty manservant Jock (Paul Bettany) in tow, they set off in search of the painting. Meanwhile, Charlie's wife Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) begins her own investigation into the missing painting.

One thing I think this movie suffers from is an overcomplicated story. There are parts where I felt as though it was tripping over plot points just to get to some laughs that occasionally fall flat. However, I did find that the characters were suitably well rounded enough to feel them as real people. The movie also takes a lot of time in its transitions to the parts of the world that it takes place. Every time we change city (or even a different part of the same city) we get an animated fly-over of the globe, which I felt worked once, but every time after that was just annoying.

The performances were all fun though. All the actors were playing against type, except for Depp. His usual hammed up performance came in handy here, making himself slightly effete and terribly in love with his freshly grown moustache, which he checks in a mirror of some sort every five seconds. Paltrow has a fun time playing his long suffering wife, although I can't see why she is still together with Mortdecai (and yet at the same time I can). Ewan McGregor's character has been in love with Johanna forever, which I thought was a fun touch to a character whose main job is to give exposition and therefore can be a tiny bit tedious.

The supporting cast is great too. Paul Bettany, normally quite a dramatic actor, plays the rather stiff but reliable manservant Jock and is just a joy in any scene. Jeff Goldblum turns up for a few scenes but the amount of screen time he gets is tantamount to murder. Olivia Munn plays his nymphomaniac daughter but has nothing really to do but be a provocative character.

All in all Mortdecai may not be the best movie out right now, but it surely is a relief from some of the more emotionally invested movies that are out at the moment. I am a huge fan of slapstick and I felt as though this had some fun moments of that.

Deliver Us From Evil

Director Scott Derrickson seems to be drawn to horror. At least that's the genre that he fits best in. Both Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose are the standout films of his directing career. Deliver Us From Evil is probably not his best foray into the genre so far, but has great performances and a well-executed script that he co-wrote with Paul Harris Boardman.

Eric Bana plays Ralph Sarchie, a tough cop working in New York's south Bronx. He gets pulled into a case which leads him to meet Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez), who believes the case is demonically related. This pushes Sarchie's beliefs to the limit.

This is based on the real life Sarchie's non-fiction book 'Beware the Night'. While I like to believe that what I'm watching can happen in the world in which a movie exists, I find it very hard to believe that these things (demonic possessions and the like) actually occur in real life, but I'm not going to get into that.

The scares in this movie are pretty straightforward. Anyone with common sense would know when they are coming and get ready for them. I will, however, award points to this seeming mash up of cop and possession movies. I do applaud the original approach to the exorcism scene, it takes place in a interrogation room.

Most of the performance are really good. Eric Bana is a really subtle actor and felt believable in this role. I really felt as though the relationship between him and his daughter was genuine. Edgar Ramirez could have easily gone over the top playing a priest who performs exorcisms, but he was quite restrained.

Joel McHale is fantastic but slightly too generic as Sarchie's fast talking partner. Sure he has skills with knife, but when you fall into the same sidekick cliche maybe this isn't the role for you. Olivia Munn just floats around in the background looking good, but not really contributing anything.

Verdict: Cool story and idea, but not much too many good scares. A decent cast does lift it up.