Office Space

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: February 19, 1999

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

68	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

TNT RoughCutGraham 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!

Michael Rechtshaffen

An extremely funny white-collar satire filled with enough delightfully askew characters to pack a boardroom and the bright talent to do them justice, the picture should strike an achingly familiar chord with 9-to-5ers the world over. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

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. Read full review

Joe Leydon

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." Read full review

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. Read full review

Film.comErnest Hardy

Sure to become a classic; it taps into the fury of being a drone with a deeply knowing precision.

Ron Wells

For the most part, the film is brilliant. Read full review

Andrew O'Hehir

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. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein

Office Space's pleasures don't really depend on plot. It's pretty much what a Dilbert feature should look like. Read full review

Peter Rainer

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. Read full review

Justin Elias

A surprisingly good-natured comedy. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

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. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The movie's dialogue is smart. It doesn't just chug along making plot points. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

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. Read full review

David Sterritt

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. Read full review

Jami Bernard

Work was never funnier.

Rita Kempley

A knowing, somewhat slight, often hilarious sendup of cubicle culture. Read full review

Desson Thomson

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. Read full review

David Edelstein

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. Read full review

James Berardinelli

It fails to sustain its comic momentum or high energy level. The first half is fresh and funny, but it doesn't last. Read full review

Susan Wloszczyna

From morning traffic jams to passive-aggressive bosses who justify their existence by making yours miserable, Space gets it right. [19 Feb 1999]

Rick Groen

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Lisa Alspector

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. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineSandra 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. Read full review

Film.comJohn Hartl

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."

Richard Corliss

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? Read full review

Michael Wilmington

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]

Owen Gleiberman

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. Read full review

Stephen Holden

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. Read full review

Film.comTom Keogh

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.