I was disappointed by Patrick Brice‘s latest movie, “Corporate Animals”. His previous films (“Creep” and “The Overnight”) weren’t half-bad, but this latest one ends up, rather quickly, being DOA in both plot and execution. Despite a talented cast of comedians which includes the likes of Ed Helms, Jessica Williams, Karan Soni, Isiah Whitlock Jr, and Dan Bakkedahl, the film has nary a single well-earned laugh within its suffocating 86 minutes. The movie also happens to contain one of the worst Demi Moore performances I have ever seen. She’s horrendous in this, completely out of her league when it comes to nailing this sort of satirical comedy …
In my not-so-complimentary review of “Corporate Animals” from Sundance, I wrote, “Even when the film quickly demonstrates that it’s just not going to make a meal of its hilarious concept, you still expect to have some laughs, based solely on the fact of how talented Brice is as a filmmaker. Unfortunately, “Corporate Animals” barely registers chuckles and its failure to appropriately skewer the corporate retreat and all its phony ideas of family and organizational harmony, is just a huge missed opportunity.”
As for Demi Moore’ performance as the ego-driven CEO Lucy, I wrote:
“Demi Moore, unfortunately, seems to be entirely out of her comfort zone by trying to stretch her dramatic chops into comedy. It’s perhaps a bold move on paper, but Moore is totally miscast, and her ill-conceived performance is awkward and her comedic timing way off. Worse, her entire routine is a detriment to some of the better comedians surrounding her, such as a hilariously deadpan Karan Soni as Freddie”
“Corporate Animals” is supposed to hit theaters and VOD on September 20th.
The timing is interesting. The settlement talks will occur nearly a month after the $7 million-per-day ticking fee start tabulating, which puts real pressure on Paramount to get this done.