While it may appear that Demi Moore has abandoned Hollywood for a simpler life, the “Ghost” actress has actually been pumping out duds like a T-shirt factory. In the past five years she’s starred in such non-classics as “Wild Oats,” “Forsaken,” “Blind” and “Rough Night.”
And now, here’s another.
In the awful “Corporate Animals,” Moore plays a high-strung but incompetent boss named Lucy, who runs a business that makes edible cutlery — the first of a million unfunny gags. When she takes her employees on a team-building retreat spelunking through desert caves, the dysfunctional crew becomes trapped after an earthquake collapses their tunnel.
What commences is the worst episode of “The Office” ever. Ed Helms of that NBC comedy even appears as their cave guide for a few minutes, before perishing under the rocks. The funniest actor in the film is sorely missed.
Still, the workplace humor in Sam Bain’s script keeps coming — these two are vying to be vice president, these pairs are having sex, the company is hemorrhaging money — and none of it makes you laugh.
That’s largely because this rubbish is too quirky. Corporate humor works because most Americans also work. These company men and women want to recognize the personalities, dynamics and passive-aggression on-screen that they experience from their cubicles. But they won’t connect with the foolish behavior in “Corporate Animals.” Kindergarten teachers might.
Moore, by the way, has never been a comic genius. The woman has played Hester Prynne — not the Laugh Factory. Still, she keeps giving the yuks the old college try. Here, the usually easeful actress cranks things up to Ludicrous Speed, and comes off like a drugged-up yogi. Like consumers with her edible forks, we don’t buy it.