Office Christmas Party (2016)

I have a soft spot for Jason Bateman so I don't care about how bad a movie sounds or how low it's rated, I'm gonna watch it anyway. I did pass Office Christmas Party though and kept putting it off for the past two years because I'm not much of a Christmas person and I had read some negative reviews and I was not in the mood for another crappy Christmas comedy. 

In this one, Clay Vanstone (T.J. Miller), the Chicago branch manager of IT sales company Zenotek, his Chief Technical of Technical Advancement, Josh Parker (Jason Bateman), and Tracey Hughes (Olivia Munn), his Chief of R&D, throw a big office Christmas party in an effort to impress a potential client (Courtney B. Vance) so that they can save the branch and all of their employers and co-workers' jobs. 

The plot is very simple and predictable —actually, there's barely a plot. However, it's not very important as this is the kind of movie dudes like James Franco and Seth Rogen would make, a kind of movie that doesn't need a fancy plot to engage and entertain its audience because the interactions between the characters and, especially, their silly shenanigans do the trick.

In addition to the plot, Office Christmas Party also lacks solid characters as every single person in this film is shallow and underdeveloped not developed at all. Also, they do try too hard to be funny, and they talk too much about doing crazy things but rarely do them. However, some of them are quite memorable and fun and they are all women: an ultra-sensitive HR representative who is nowhere as depressing as Toby from The Office, and a bi-polar pimp.

Of course, the standouts are the two actresses who play those characters, Kate McKinnon as the HR representative —I didn't like her at all in The Spy Who Dumped Me, so she really surprised me in here—, and Jillian Bell as the pimp. Bateman, who yet again plays the nice guy who wants to try new things, isn't bad —actually, he nails the role. I didn't expect any less from him though—, and Jennifer Aniston does a good job playing the bitchy, uptight CEO/Clay's sister.

Paramount Pictures

The comedy is a hit and miss. Some jokes and gags are funny, some others make you wish you were deaf or blind. Also, there some gratuitous nudity that adds absolutely nothing, and it's definitely not funny.

Overall, Office Christmas Party isn't a terrible film, but it isn't a good one either. It's okay if you want something different than your typical, feel-good Christmas movie. But don't expect a masterpiece because this sure isn't one.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)

I have a girl crush on Mila Kunis since always so of course I decided to watch The Spy Who Dumped Me, no matter how stupid and terrible the movie sounded/seemed from the trailer. 

The film follows two thirty-year-old friends living in Los Angeles, Audrey (Mila Kunis) and Morgan (Kate McKinnon). When Drew (Justin Theroux), the guy who dumped Audrey with a text, turns out to be a spy and shows up at their apartment with deadly assassins on his tail and ends up dead, Audrey and Morgan becomes targets and must go on the run across Europe from assassins and a suspicious but charming British agent (Sam Heughan) to save their lives and the world, eventually.

As the plot develops, it's more than clear that the writers, director Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, had no idea what to do with it so they put in it every single stupid "idea" they could think of. The result is a ridiculous plot that makes no sense whatsoever as it's filled with holes and illogicalities, that is predictable —I have to admit though that some of the blame is on whoever translated the title in Italian as it is spoilery—, and dull.

As for the characters and cast, I don't even know where to start. Mila Kunis has this quality of keeping you glued to the screen no matter how bad the film is and she does that here too as she plays the dumb, one-dimensional character she always plays. However, she really isn't nothing more than eye candy as she fails each time she is supposed to deliver humour. Kate McKinnon who apparently is a comedian —I had never heard of her before— easily gives the flattest performance. She is definitely too much, like she says in the movie about her character, but she is too much of bad. The chemistry between Kunis and McKinnon is great though and they are believable as best friends.

Lionsgate

Ultimately, The Spy Who Dumped Me is the kind of movie that tries too hard to be a clever spy comedy, like Paul Feig's Spy, but it fails miserably in the process because of the atrocity and childishness of the jokes and gags that fall flat most if not all the time. There's a lot of action and violence, which is something you would expect from a spy film, but it's basically poor's action and violence as they are pretty bland and unexciting.