{"id":108527,"date":"2019-06-01T16:39:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T15:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=108527"},"modified":"2019-06-01T16:39:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T15:39:35","slug":"corporate-animals-sundance-london-review-team-building-gets-bloody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/corporate-animals-sundance-london-review-team-building-gets-bloody\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Animals Sundance London review: team-building gets bloody"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Creep<\/em><\/strong> director Patrick Brice knows how to hit that mark where awkward laughs turn to real fear (and back again), and writer Sam Bain has explored a world of gut-wrenchingly awkward interactions from the domestic (<strong><em>Peep Show<\/em><\/strong>) to the horrifying (<strong><em>Four Lions<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>However, one of the most surprising things about workplace satire <strong><em>Corporate Animals<\/em><\/strong> is how straightforward it is. To call it blunt would be to do a disservice to a lot of the jokes and to the performances, but it\u2019s bitter, a bit scattershot and pretty angry, a hatchet rather than a hammer.<\/p>\n<p>Demi Moore is having a ball as Lucy, the monstrous CEO of a company that makes environmentally friendly edible cutlery. She\u2019s taken her unhappy employees on a team-building retreat but when her decision to force their guide (Ed Helms, merrily exploring a strange blend of zen bro and alpha douche) to take the gang through the expert level of a New Mexico cave system goes drastically wrong, the team building becomes more of a deconstruction. To paraphrase Freddie\u2019s (Karan Soni) survival pitch, they\u2019re not saying they should eat the dead guy. They\u2019re saying they could eat the dead guy.<\/p>\n<p>Once it\u2019s clear that there\u2019s no way out the plot settles into a predictable groove and it\u2019s up to the screenplay\u2019s brutal barbs and the cast to keep things interesting. To go into much detail about how they do so would be to rob <strong><em>Corporate Animals<\/em> <\/strong>of its strongest asset: if the plotting is familiar and the violence is surprisingly restrained, what comes out of these extremely disaffected, crushed employees\u2019 mouths is frequently unexpected, biting and hilarious.<\/p>\n<p>Demi Moore chews the scenery with great relish but Jessica Williams and Soni are just as impressive, working hard to make their leads relatable while fully engaging with the grosser, weirder moments. Nasim Pedrad, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Dan Bakkedahl, Jennifer Kim and Martha Kelly each get their time to shine, but <strong><em>Bodied<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s Calum Worthy just about steals the whole thing as hallucinating, increasingly gangrenous intern Aidan.<\/p>\n<p>And, for the most part, Brice and Bain have a lot of sympathy for these worker bees who\u2019ve ended up at death\u2019s door because of the hubris of one selfish individual, which means that there is a heart lurking somewhere in <strong><em>Corporate Animals<\/em> <\/strong>even if it\u2019s not always easy to see. We can\u2019t help but wish that the whole thing was a little sharper and a little more surprising but there are caustic gross-out laughs to be had.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corporate Animals was seen and reviewed at Sundance London.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patrick Brice and Sam Bain team up for bloody workplace satire Corporate Animals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":108528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,8],"tags":[6505,797],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/46396460091_2e4222e640_o.0.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}