Suffering from his bad job and silly boss, who has prepared to seize the corporation, the thing that makes the employees fear, Peter Gibbons, a computer programmer, who by the help of his friends and work mates, decides to enter a virus on the corporation's bank system, in order to transfer money for their accounts.
Imagine a live-action version of Dilbert, or In the Company of Men reconceived as a lighthearted romp, and you get the idea of Office Space, the auspicious live-action debut of Mike Judge.
Office Space, a knowing, somewhat slight, often hilarious sendup of cubicle culture, exploits the yuks in the chronic misery of those routinely exposed to the monotonous gray of corporate minds and company decor.
Office Space 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.
Isn't it a shame that people expect certain conventions from their movies -- niggling little things like interesting plots with beginnings, middles and ends, and maybe a little character development thrown in for good measure?
With a judiciously executed hip-hop soundtrack and the same anti-conformist spirit that informs Judge's TV cartoons, "Office Space" can expect to attract people who aren't even old enough to be stuck in dead-end jobs.
