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Written by Pete Timmermann Friday, 04 September 2009 04:52

Mike Judge skillfully mines his specialty here, making you hate stupid people and hate your stupid job.

Studios very famously don't know what to do with Mike Judge's films. His best known is, of course, Office Space, which 20th Century Fox buried as best they could in its original theatrical run, only to find it become a cash cow on video. Even more glaring was Fox's handling of Idiocracy, easily Judge's best film: They didn't even bother to open it in many major American markets, including St. Louis, and, uh...New York City. Again, Fox was surprised to find Idiocracy become a cash cow once it hit video. And now Judge has made Extract, which is getting a decent push from its distributor (Miramax this time; up yours, Fox!). But is it any good? Regardless its quality, if Extract fails in the box office, it's going to make the suits at Fox think that they were right all along.

To be honest, I don't have the slightest guess how Extract might perform upon its theatrical release. What I can attest to is its quality: Extract is very funny, and certainly deserves an audience. It isn't quite as good as Idiocracy, but I would put it approximately on par with Office Space, which is most people's favorite Judge film, anyway.

Extract is the story of Joel (Jason Bateman, not straying far from Michael Bluth here), who is firmly implanted in typical Mike Judge terrain: He is the owner of a successful extract plant that is about to be sold very profitably to General Mills, but an accident caused by nothing more than the stupidity of his employees throws that all into jeopardy. Meanwhile, he's considering cheating on his bored wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig, who brings some life to an underwritten character) with his very attractive new factory employee Cindy (Mila Kunis, continuing her presence in good comedies after last year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and, after a drug-induced brainstorming session with his less-than-respectable brother Dean (Ben Affleck), he decides to hire a young gigolo named Brad (the much-talked-about scene-stealer Dustin Milligan) to seduce Suzie so he can cheat on her guilt-free. On top of all of that, Joel has to deal with his (very Judgian) stupid neighbor Nathan (David Koechner) who won't shut up, and an absolutely terrifying lawyer named Adler (Gene Simmons—yes, that Gene Simmons).

Although he's not exactly growing as a filmmaker, Mike Judge skillfully mines his specialty here, making you hate stupid people and hate your stupid job. What's more, he's even more effective than the vast majority of directors of thrillers in creating a sense of foreboding; if you're not cringing as Joel drives to his house hoping to avoid Nathan, the only reason can be that you yourself are a Nathan. And while Judge does successfully rehash his old tricks, he woefully falls into many of his old traps, such as not knowing what to do in the third act, which is a pretty serious problem that befalls Office Space and Idiocracy, as well. Even so, Extract is far funnier and smarter than your typical summer comedy. And if it fails in the box office, well, we can just chalk that up to human stupidity, can't we? | Pete Timmermann