Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical: 20th Century Fox
Blu-ray: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Disc:
Region: A
Runtime: 89 min.
Chapters: 36
Size: 50 GB
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: February 3, 2009
Video:
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Video codec: AVC @ 33 Mbps
Audio:
English DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1;
Spanish & French DD
Subtitles:
English SDH & Spanish, Cantonese & Mandarin
Extras:
• Out of the Office – a Retrospective with Writer/Director
Mike Judge (27:03)
• 8 Deleted Scenes (4:30)
• Post-it Pandemonium – The Apathy on Men Trivia Track
• Executive Games: Grab the Stapler, Printer Beat-Down,
Whack-a-Drone, Jump to Conclusions 2.0
• Executive Games: Grab the Stapler, Printer Beat-Down,
Whack-a-Drone, Jump to Conclusions 2.0
The Film:
6
Office Space is now almost ten years old. There's a quote by
Roger Ebert on the cover: "A smart, savage comedy." Perhaps
the satire was fresh back then, but it seems now, while apt,
old hat. That said, it's hard not to relate to life in a
cubicle even if you've never worked in such an office. And
yes, Mike Judge's portrait of middle and upper management is
vicious with a core of truth, but I found just about every
gag – with the exception of any scene with Stephen Root as
the bug-eyed and relentlessly put-upon Milton - predictable
and telegraphed for too long before it punched. I never
could work up much enthusiasm for the antihero drudges or
their plot to achieve early retirement. Jennifer Anniston's
chameleon character struck me as entirely unnecessary, an
afterthought with as maybe five scenes and as many lines in
each.
Image:
7/8
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence
compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale.
The second number places this image along the full range of
DVD and Blu-ray discs.
The image is clean and free of those pesky enhancements or
DNR, but generally thin and flat with a fine layer of fuzz
laid on top. It's sharp enough, just uninteresting.
Audio & Music:
7/6
The audio of Office Space is dialogue driven and so tends to
be front-directed. Speech is clear (thank you, DTS HD-MA),
and while there is some subtle office ambiance it is really
only the music that opens the stage up for us.
Operations:
5
The basic menu design, with its animated cutout, a la Monty
Python, is most amusing until we get to the Deleted Scenes
where we are forced to return to the menu after each
segment, one of which is all of nine seconds. Apparently,
Fox is indulging in a little office cruelty of its own.
Extras:
5
The Extra Features from the similarly titled "Special
Edition with Flair" DVD are present here as well: "Out of
the Office", the 8 Deleted Scenes. In place of the DVD-Rom
material the Blu-ray includes a huge post-it enabled Trivia
Track and some mindless games: "Grab the Stapler" "Printer
Beat-Down" and "Whack-a-Drone" are in-feature games.
"Jump-to-Conclusions 2.0" is brilliant for its utter
pointlessness.
Bottom line:
6
Mike Judge's Office Space has a devoted following –
more, I think, for what it represents and the situations
that we can identify with – at a comfortable distance, of
course. Fans will want the high-def upgrade, which this
Blu-ray just manages to get across.
Leonard Norwitz
February 7th, 2009
