I've read Dilbert in my local newspaper. I've seen the Dilbert booksplastered all over bookstores. I've heard there's a new Dilbert
television show. Yes, I'm aware that Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis and
Butt-head" did some Dilbertesque "Milton" shorts before all that, but
pal, you missed the damn boat. Scott Adams beat you to market. He took
the same idea and made roughly six trillion dollars with it. Let it go,
man. Let it go.
"Office Space" is Mike Judge's attempt to alert the world that he was
onto this whole "Dilbert" thing first. Too little, too late. Judge, who
made his fortune stringing a single syllable ("huh") into a
career, apparently once walked into an actual office to pick up some bags
of money, and walked out thinking he was eminently qualified to make a
movie mocking the travails of the "working man." Memo from the little
people, Mike: Don't ask us to pay $7 to be patronized.
Peter Gilbert's -- er, Gibbons' (Ron Livingston) -- philosophy of working
is this: It sucks. As he sits at his desk at Initech, he's disrupted by
eight different supervisors, including Bill Lumbert -- er, Lumbergh
(Gary Cole). All they want from him, time and time again, is to fill out
forms correctly, while Milbert -- er, Milton (Stephen Root) -- sits in
his cubicle grunting about setting the building on fire. Peter devises a
plan to steal from his company, and he gets Michael Bolton (David
Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) to help him. I know what you're thinking
right now: Michael Bolton? I wonder how many jokes there are about that?
Answer: too many.
The lone and stupid subplot involves Peter falling for disgruntled
waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), who works at a local restaurant.
Hmmm, Jennifer Aniston as a loser waitress. Hell, why not really raise
the reality factor on this pup? Kate Moss as an anal thermometer tester,
Heidi Klum as a grungy janitor. Finally, Judge has this thing about hard
rap music. I'm all for irony, but watching Caucasian white-collar dorks
while listening to the Geto Boys' "Damn It Feels Good to Be A Gangsta"
is like watching Japanese basketball.
