| 95 |
TNT RoughCut
Graham Verdon
Observations on the modern office space are dead-on, and I dare you not to laugh out loud at a few of the sophomoric jokes!
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Bristling with shrewd observation, inspired humor and all-around smarts, Office Space is a winner about a guy who's beginning to feel like a loser. [19 Feb 1999]
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| 90 |
Variety
Imagine a live-action version of the "Dilbert" comic strip with a touch of Hal Hartley's deadpan absurdism, and you're ready for the frequently uproarious "Office Space."
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| 90 |
LA Weekly
Dave Shulman
Mike Judge’s live-action directorial debut not only whittles the high-strung festering soul of ‘90s Orthodox Corporationism down to the quick and quintessential but wraps its veins around his fingers and flosses our teeth.
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| 90 |
Film.com
Sure to become a classic; it taps into the fury of being a drone with a deeply knowing precision.
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| 80 |
Village Voice
Justin Elias
A surprisingly good-natured comedy.
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| 80 |
Film Threat
For the most part, the film is brilliant.
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| 80 |
Salon.com
Its characters and its nowheresville setting are uncannily realized... It's not a cartoon in any sense, but an honest-to-God movie with some fine, understated acting and a human heart.
|
| 80 |
New Times (L.A.)
Office Space's pleasures don't really depend on plot. It's pretty much what a Dilbert feature should look like.
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| 80 |
New York Magazine
Office Space is so enjoyable that you wish it were even better...Once the scheme to bilk Initech is set in motion, the off-kilter humor flattens into a take-this-job-and-shove-it thing, and the ending seems pooped-out.
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| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
The storyline is something of a hodge-podge but what the narrative lacks in honing and straight-ahead storytelling it more than makes up for with well-aimed barbs and acutely focused observations...this funny, funny satire gets us where we live.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie's dialogue is smart. It doesn't just chug along making plot points.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Jennifer Aniston...doesn't have much screen time, but in playing this slightly insecure, affable young woman, she does her best film acting to date.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Work was never funnier.
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| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
In a surprise move, the creator of "Beavis and Butt-Head" has made a laid-back, even subtle comedy that generally favors mischievous ironies over outlandish jokes.
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| 70 |
Slate
It's on the verge of being really good...his narrative peters out without a decent payoff. It's a testament to the rage and anxieties that he has brilliantly tapped into that he can't get away with a subdued conflagration and a lame twist at the end.
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| 70 |
Washington Post
A knowing, somewhat slight, often hilarious sendup of cubicle culture.
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| 70 |
Washington Post
I could love it only as far as it let me. Although the movie has hilarious moments throughout, its thematic thinness is writ fairly large on the big screen.
|
| 63 |
ReelViews
It fails to sustain its comic momentum or high energy level. The first half is fresh and funny, but it doesn't last.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
Craig Marine
There are plenty of good sight gags here, and anyone who can work the phrase "ass clown" into a script is all right with me.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
What began as discomfiting satire soon devolves into silly farce. By the time Friends star Jennifer Aniston pops up as a waitress-cum-love-interest (quite a stretch for her), it's a sure sign we're back within the smug confines of the Tinseltown formula flick.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
From morning traffic jams to passive-aggressive bosses who justify their existence by making yours miserable, Space gets it right. [19 Feb 1999]
|
| 60 |
Film.com
Livingston is especially good at capturing Peter's passive rebelliousness, which suggests the suddenly uncooperative worker who defies employer logic in Herman Melville's "Bartleby."
|
| 60 |
Time
At its shambling best, Office Space is like a bracing break at the coffee machine. Some horrible Monday, why not cut work to see it?
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Until the story diverges from a similar agenda, the gags about the daily grind and what happens when a drone forgets how to be submissive make for beautifully low-key satire, and the caricatures of office types seem clever.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Sandra Contreras
Even if it doesn't up live to its inspired beginning, Mike Judge scores something with all the marks of a workplace cult classic with his first big-screen, live-action outing.
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| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
Feels cramped and underimagined. I think Judge is capable of making an inspired live-action comedy, but next time he'll have to remember to do what he does in his animated ones--keep the madness popping.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Drably shot, unimaginatively written and shallowly acted, it's a poor example of the "daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys" occupational comedies that flourished throughout the job-obsessed '80s. [19 Feb 1999]
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| 40 |
The New York Times
It has the loose-jointed feel of a bunch of sketches packed together into a narrative that doesn't gather much momentum. Its conspiratorial eager beavers are so undeveloped that they could hardly even be called types. You don't care for a second what happens to them.
|
| 30 |
Film.com
The collapse of Office Space's second half is so egregious that one can't help but suspect Judge's Achilles heel may be his writing. It's not that he can't write -- it's just that his ideas tend to shine better within a pool of fellow scribes, as proven in his television career.
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