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.
If the movie is as rough as some in the industry seem to fear, that teaser may have been less of a marketing campaign and more of a public plea for somebody to finally take the damn thing.