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‘Corporate Animals’ Review: Trust Falls at the Center of the Earth

Demi Moore plays the unpleasant boss of unpleasant people trying to survive after a cave collapses on a company retreat.

From left: Nasim Pedrad, Jessica Williams, Ed Helms, Karan Soni and Martha Kelly play co-workers trapped with each other in “Corporate Animals.”Credit...John Golden Britt/Screen Media
Corporate Animals
Directed by Patrick Brice
Comedy, Horror
R
1h 26m

This movie comes on like a bad stand-up comedian lobbing a “Hey, having a job — what’s that about?” pitch at the audience. Demi Moore, as Lucy, an arrogant chief executive, is first seen going over a TV ad for her company’s signature product, edible cutlery. She hates it, and in vinegar tones upbraids Jess (Jessica Williams), who concocted the spot. Lucy wanted so much better from Jess; “I thought you could be the Beyoncé of business, “ she tells the African-American woman.

Proceedings don’t improve from there, as Jess, Lucy and their co-workers head out to a corporate retreat that involves exploring a cave. But a mishap kills their guide and seals them in; Lucy and her employees must engineer a survival scenario.

As food and water become scarce, personal and professional secrets are laid bare. Sexual shenanigans in the workplace are revealed. No one is honorable, or kind, or smart.

The film, directed by Patrick Brice from a script by Sam Bain, signals an idiosyncratic commitment to diversity by making Jess and Freddie, played by India-born Karan Soni, among the most venal and unpleasant of the venal and unpleasant group. (Oddly, they are played by talented comic actors including Isaiah Whitlock Jr. and Nasim Pedrad; they here cannot crack even a viewer’s smile.) The filmmakers attempt to milk mirth from Freddie’s obsessive “CSI: New York” fandom, as if a random episode of that undistinguished TV series were not, in fact, miles better than this movie.

“Corporate Animals” may find a place in film history for being the first American movie release to make a post-arraignment Harvey Weinstein joke, or, more accurately, “joke.” Otherwise, if what you’re looking for are vulgar cartoons based on facile social stereotypes being awful to each other, “Corporate Animals” will fill the bill.

Corporate Animals

Rated R for language, gore, venality. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Corporate Animals. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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