November 2, 2005 -
The Movie
Office Space is a culmination of great humor -- the office, the relationship, the guys and the apartment life -- all rolled into one. It's one of those movies that just never, ever get old.
I was taken aback a while ago when my communications professor (who is from China and is still learning English) saw my mini red Swingline stapler and said, "Have you seen Office Space? That movie is hilarious! I like it when he says (in a bad attempt at an American accent) 'Yeah if you can come in tomorrow, that would be great!'" She then laughed so hard, so much, and so loud that I was just staring into space, amazed that what I thought was a small little film had grown into such a large following.
This movie is just hilarious. The way Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) goes up to Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) and simply talks her into meeting him for lunch is just amazing to watch. How Peter somehow does less work and yet gets promoted for doing so. How Lawrence (Diedrich Bader) is so perfect in his character that, when asked what he would do with a million dollars, simply says, "I'd tell ya' what I'd do man. Two chicks at the same time." And that's all it takes to truly understand him.
I could go on gushing about the film, but you just have to see it. And if you've seen it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This is just one fantastic movie.
Score: 9 out of 10
The Video
Fox typically doesn't do well with their video transfers, leaving a blue tint across the screen or dull, muted colors.
That thankfully didn't happen with this UMD. While the ratio has been cropped from 1.85 to 1.78, it's hardly anything to worry or complain about (though I wish Fox would just leave the ratio alone already). The picture looks sharp and the colors are fine. There's some picture grain and blemishes here and there, but that's a result of the film and not the UMD transfer. Overall the video looks great.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Audio
The audio could definitely be louder, as I got the volume just right...until I realized the volume was up full blast with +2 UMD volume turned on. The music comes on nice and full, but the vocals are just a tad too quiet. For some reason the French and Spanish audio tracks are much louder.
The few scenes that have directional effects sound great. Overall the audio is good; it just needs to be louder.
Score: 6 out of 10
The Extras
The original Office Space DVD had no extras, and the Office Space: Special Edition with Flair had a few, yet felt a bit lacking as well. The UMD cover art is from the bare bones DVD version, but thankfully Fox brought over some extra flair from the DVD to make quite a nice set of UMD extras.
First up are the menus, which are taken directly from the DVD Flair edition and look great. While there is no chapter selection (bad news for all those not upgrading to 2.0, as you will have to slowly skip each chapter instead of instantly jumping around), the menus that are there are nicely animated and sometimes funny. You also get some trailers from Dodgeball, Super Troopers and Napoleon Dynamite.
One extra brought over from the DVD is the 27-minute Office Space retrospective with writer/director Mike Judge. This is a nice look at all the casting choices, the stories within the film, as well as some of the small details from the film and the cartoons from Mike Judge that inspired it all. The whole documentary is a great substitute for the commentary we unfortunately never got with the DVD or UMD, and the cast members (sans Jennifer Aniston) are all here to share their experiences.
The only extra feature from the Flair edition that is not on the UMD are the deleted scenes, which aren't really interesting anyways and ran only five minutes. But I do like Fox's choice to put the retrospective on the UMD as well as the snazzy menus, because it makes the UMD that much more fleshed out and worth buying.
Score: 8 out of 10
If you have the old DVD version of Office Space and have no plans of upgrading to the Special Edition with Flair, then you will be pleased to note this UMD has the one great special feature that made the DVD worth buying, as well as good video and fine audio. Don't hesitate to pick this one up (which can be found as low as $14) and watch it in your own cubicle for the win.
David "chubigans" Galindo is the founder of pspmoviereviews.net
