Adult version of ..
Yeah, I started doing this kind of titles as well. I hate myself sometimes.
This movie is an adult version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
The main theme is the same; FREEDOM.
The protagonist also takes an unconventional, 'scary-to-most-people' sort of way out of their routine that others are a slave to.
This is the sort of thing Ferris would do as an adult, in that dull corporate environment.
This movie also reminds me of 'The Arrival' (the Charlie Sheen one), because both movies have so much potential, such interesting premises, and really great and immersive beginnings - or should I say, 'first half' or so.
Too bad that both movies become a bit of a mess near the end, as if they couldn't decide how to end their story gracefully. 'The Arrival' becomes a mess as soon as we are finally shown what's going on (the idea couldn't have been stupider).
This movie becomes a mess when it doesn't -really- deliver the relief the audience is waiting for - the protagonist simply changes one set of shackles to another, more physically demanding ones (that he'll end up hating, despite being out in the fresh (and not-so-fresh) air).
It's a shame that so much potential was wasted - I wish this movie could've delivered 'perfection' the same way Ferris Bueller's Day Off did; Ferris got away cleanly, and everything was fine, although scary things happened and confrontations were created (the Ferrari, mainly).
The bad guy was humiliated, the good guys won. Ferris Bueller's Day Off ended 'perfectly' in that sense.
The Office didn't end up as perfectly; the whole 'crime angle' was stupid and immoral, and the protagonist ending up doing a menial, physical work is not exactly a happy ending. He never got his dream of 'doing nothing', except for a few days. He never really changed, grew as a character all that much, and never did what he truly wanted to do.
Construction work wasn't really his dream at all.
Ferris got his dream, why couldn't The Office's protagonist get his? Also, why couldn't 'The Arrival' have had a more intelligent storyline than the usual 'aliens attack us, inform everyone' crap?
Even the whole 'terraforming' angle wasn't new, it was used in 'The Tripods' (originally written in the sixties, I think, and made into a TV show in 1984 or so).
What's with these movies that have so much wonderful potential, but don't deliver?
I think Idiocracy also suffers from the same thing; it has brilliant ideas and very well executed stuff, but it just ends up collapsing upon itself in the end, and doesn't really give us a proper happy ending.
It's like this planet is a 'wasted potential factory', when it comes to movies. So many movies have a great beginning.