Extract

Extract

Extract - Written and directed by Mike Judge, starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, and Ben Affleck - Rated R

A Kurgan for now, but this one might age into a Chigurh.



Extract, the latest from Mike Judge, is a low key, strange comedy that may not reach the cult status of Office Space, but is still a very enjoyable film. The story isn't traditional by any means. Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of an extract company who is just going through the motions, hoping to sell the company and get out of the rut he is in. Before that can happen, though, a freak accident involving the loss of one and near loss of the other ("it's barely hanging on") of a worker Step's testicles (Clifton Collins, Jr., an increasingly enjoyable actor), slows down the sale of the company.

Enter Mila Kunis as con artist Cindy. She makes sure the accident turns into a lawsuit so she can swindle as much money out of Step as possible. Meanwhile, she flirts away with Joel, leaving him to believe that all he really needs is some infidelity to make things better. This is where Joel's bartender buddy, Dean (Affleck), comes into play. He's the pill popping devil on Joel's shoulder and he makes for some of the funniest dialogue in the movie. But it's not that loud, weird funny of a Will Ferrel comedy. It's the little things. The slow taking of a drink away after accidentally giving Joel a horse tranquilizer. His claim that he takes Xanax for the common head cold. There are a few lines that stand out, but for the most part the conversations in general bring the laughs.

That's not to say that Affleck is the only funny thing here. David Koechner is perfect as the annoying neighbor and his character has an amazingly funny pay off. Bateman is funny as well, in kind of the same way Ron Livingston was funny in Office Space. He's a decent enough guy, who gets pushed to the edge and makes some questionable decisions along the way and his subdued reactions are great. Kristen Wiig is okay in the film, but I would say her performance is only notable because she isn't playing a copy of one of her SNL characters. J. K. Simmons is amusing, but I honestly expected his scenes to be funnier. It seemed like I would chuckle a bit at a few of his lines not because they were funny, but because I really wanted them to be funny.

That pretty much sums up the film for me. I wanted it to be hilarious, but it turned out to be just funny. I think this film will sink in after a couple more viewings on DVD, though. This is why Mike Judge's films don't do well at the box office. People don't come out telling all their friends, "You've GOT to see this!" They come out saying, "It was funny, I guess." It's only a year of two later before people realize just how funny it was.

I don't want to sound like I didn't like this movie or anything, though. The bong scene is hilarious with the exaggerated smoke and the hilarious music cues during Bateman's stoned conversation with a creepy pot dealer. Rory, the grindcore band member, is a funny character and Mike Judge's cameo is amusing. And I cannot stress enough how funny Affleck is in this. You just won't hear anyone quoting him or any other character anytime soon. But is there anything wrong with that? It actually makes me feel a little warm inside knowing that I was one of the few to watch Extract when it first came out, because I know it will resonate a lot longer than it's box office take might indicate. It may not end up being another Office Space, but it's still a comedy everybody should check out.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Extract

Extract

Starring: Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Mila Kunis

Director: Mike Judge

Genre: Comedy

Rated: R

Joel is the owner of an Extract Co. who has to deal with his wife, his neighbor, his best friend and his employees while trying to sell his extract co.

Extract is Mike Judges latest attempt at a film after the miserable failure of idiocracy and achieving cult like status with the box office disappointment but DVD success Office Space.

Joel (Jason Bateman) is the owner of an Extract plant who’s love life with his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) has completely fallen apart. When a new temp Cindy (Mila Kunis) catches Joel’s eye he takes the advice of his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) to hire a Gigolo and test Suzie to see if she is faithful, if she isn’t the logic is that Joel can pursue Cindy Guilt Free. Meanwhile Cindy has hooked up with Step (Clifton Collins Jr) to convince him to sue the extract plant due to an accident that cost him a testicle.

Extract tries to sell itself as a factory office space, however where it fails in that comparison is that the characters and situations in office space were funny because they were relate-able. There is nothing in extract that touches the same nerve. It tries with a busybody neighbor and the failure of the suburban sex life. However there just isn’t enough there to carry the entire film. Kristen Wiig has to be the least funny person to ever come out of Saturday night live. She is not funny in anything she has been in. Ben Affleck is pathetic as the Stoner bartender Dean, Blatantly trying to take from James Francos character Saul in Pineapple Express and Bradd Pitt’s portrayal of Floyd from True Romance. He reaches a level of failure not seen since Gili. Mila Kunis who was fantastic in Forgetting Sarah Marshall brings nothing memorable nor believable  to her character. Bateman does what he can but should have just saved his time for the Arrested Development movie.

Extract is boring, Lacks humor, has no characters that we care about or any form of interesting story. For a movie that I really wanted to like and had high hopes for Extract was terrible, The tagline should not be “A Comedy With a Flavor of its Own” but instead should be “Suck has its own Flavor”"

I give Extract one Sniper Kitten, It might have gotten two if I could get the taste  out of my mouth

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extract

i enjoyed this flick.  i’ve been a fan of jason bateman since way back teen wolf too days.  and i’ve been a fan of mike judge since beavis and butthead.  and mila kunis, well, i’m just in love with her.  she’s got that damn cute look about her.  and it fits her great in this role.  j.k. simmons is also in this film and he’s become one of my favorites lately as well.

i think one of the reasons king of the hill has been on so long is mike judge has a keen eye for the human condition.  people easily relate to what he’s saying.  a lot of us feel and act the same way as his characters.  and we all know people who do if we don’t.

office space was a home run.  no doubt about it.  for anyone who’s ever worked in an office, office space is must own dvd material.  when i first say idiocracy i didn’t really like it that much.  but i watched it again.  being a mike judge fan i figured i’d give him the benefit of the doubt.  and it grew on me.  i’d call it a ground rule double today.  and extract is much more accessible than idiocracy.  i call this one a sacrifice fly.  he doesn’t get it out of the park, but a run scores.

i’d also like to add that kristin wiig has never looked hotter.  she plays jason bateman’s wife and the main part of the story is about thier relationship.  the opening scenes talk about how bateman’s character and his wife don’t get it on any more.  and i thought this film did a good job of showing how things like that can happen between two people who do love each other.  but work gets in the way, monotony gets in the way, things are taken for granted and it’s easy to see how relationships can and do suffer.  it’s an interesting character study as well as a comedy.  and that’s what makes mike judge great.

ben affleck does his best job as the stoner/druggy bartending pal of bateman.  and i say he does his best because in the scenes it looks like he really is stoned, he’s pretty good.  ah, he’s actually pretty good all around in this one.  not a role we see him in very often, but i guess all it takes to play a stoner is to just get stoned and deliver your lines.  my only grip is the dude that plays the big super stoner with giant graffix bong does not act like any stoner i’ve ever met.  dude is way overly aggressive.  i mean, sure stoners have mood swings like this guy, but damn.  maybe they left out the part about him having roid rage.

i didn’t get a chance to screen gamer, the other big movie out this weekend.  well, i suppose all about steve with sandra bullock and the guy from hangover will be the big movie this weekend.  i didn’t screen that one either.  but i’ll post on those when i get the chance.  all i can say is you won’t be disappointed if you see extract this weekend.

Cal Reed

Extract: A film without flavor

Never underestimate the power of a push-up bra.

Never overestimate the depths of male naivety.

Drugs aren't for everyone.

The Movie Slut can't say she didn't learn anything from the new Mike Judge film "Extract" and she did cotton to Jason Bateman as the downtrodden Everyman and Ben Affleck as his hirsute sidekick. But this screwball comedy, with too many unfunny jokes about balls and screwing, had her yearning for better days. Like when Judge gave her an ingenious, inspired, hilarious movie called "Office Space." 

So, dear slutettes, skip the multiplex this time. Go to Blockbuster or Netflix and rent "Office Space." It's like an old lover who never lets you down.

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See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

Extract

I love Mike Judge.

In his twenty year career Judge has produced a classic television show ("Beavis and Butthead"), a less-cited but quietly brilliant follow-up ("King of the Hill"), a classic feature film ("Office Space") and a less-cited but quietly brilliant follow-up to that ("Idiocracy.")

Now he gives us "Extract," a typically Judgian workplace comedy.

"Extract" centers around Jason Bateman's Joel, a likable married man who owns and runs an artificial-flavor processing plant. Joel has maybe thirty employees at the factory, and each of them is a different kind of headache.

In a nice tip of the cap to reality, the only employees who aren't troublesome are the silent Mexicans who are presumed to be illegals.

Unfortunately for Joel there aren't enough of those. Instead he deals with the lazy, the distracted and the entitled. He would like to sell the entire company to General Mills, but when a workplace accident costs one of his employees a testicle, sparking a potential lawsuit, the lucrative sell-out is on hold.

Things get both better and worse -- always a good story dynamic -- when Mila Kunis' temp worker Cindy shows up. Cindy is young, gorgeous and apparently interested in Joel. What Joel doesn't know, but we the audience do -- yay superior position! -- is that Cindy is a career crook and the driving force behind the lawsuit.

"Extract" is an affable, low-key charmer. In baseball terms it's a solid base hit the runner stretched into a double. It's not a genre classic like "Office Space" but the dialogue is fun, the characters are mostly kind-hearted and there's just enough quirk to keep things interesting.

What puzzles me about this movie is the star power involved. Ben Affleck has a sizable role as Bateman's Xanax-pushing bartender friend. Kristen Wiig plays Bateman's bored and sexually uninterested wife. Comedy fave JK Simmons plays Bateman's business partner and Gene Simmons of KISS shows up as a predatorial litigator with some funny lines: "I will drop this case right now if you let me slam your balls in this door."

Isn't Mike Judge a big enough creative force not to require stars in his low-budget, low-concept comedy? As good as all the recognizable actors are in their roles, I wonder if "Extract" would have been more engrossing if Judge had gone with unknowns. A good director with a good script can get a good performance out of anybody, and as an audience member I always get more attached to actors I associate with their characters than actors I associate with other work.

Maybe Judge's acrimonious struggle with Fox over his last effort, the largely star-free "Idiocracy", convinced him to hedge his bets this time. Or maybe Judge is just superstitious. It's hard not to be in a profession so dominated by luck.

Judge shouldn't worry. He's plenty good without the help of movie stars. Maybe better.

Can I do a Beavis and Butthead quote? Is that allowed in 2009? Oh hell, just for old times' sake:

"Huh huh. Huh Huh. Come... to Butthead."

SCORE:

How Accomplished: 72/100

How Much I Enjoyed: 81/100

Extract

Writer and Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, JK Simmons,
Gene Simmons, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins Jr.

This movie is a great second half of a double bill with "Office Space" both by the gifted Mike Judge. This is a movie about funny characters more than just broad jokes. Jason Bateman is becoming a very good and dependable actor and he is fantastic here, he knows to handle comedy. There is a great supporting cast and I feel over time this will become a cult classic like "Office Space".

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Vincent Snavely

Extract [2009] --- 2

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1225822/



So I saw that this was new DVD release and I thought. “huh, I’ll give it a try.” Bad mistake and a good thing that I only rented it.

I can honestly say that there were 2 things that drew me into this movie, and one of them should have been a dead giveaway that it would suck. Look at the cover art. “From the creators of Office Space” anything that references a movie that is epic beyond possibilities means that its nothing more than a Cleveland steamer. I should have listened to that part of me, but no. I saw the cute girl, Mila Kunis and decided that there was no way it was that bad. Stupid male mind.

But here's the other thing that threw me off. The beginning was awesome! Like it makes you want to sit down and watch the rest of it awesome. It turns out that the beginning was the only good part. I laughed at the beginning and one other scene during this 92 minute crap fest. And one of them wasn’t even about the movie itself, but about the fact that Gene Simmons, aka lead singer of Kiss, was in it. I laughed at that.

The one thing I knew I was going to hate going into this movie though was the fact that it had Jason Bateman in it. I fucking hate Jason Bateman for the simple fact that he plays the same exact character in every movie. Seriously, show me a movie where he acts differently (and its convincing different) and I will retract this statement. I flat out cannot stand him. My hatred is about the same for Bateman as it is for Nicholas Cage.

****SPOILER ALERT****

As far as the story goes it’s pretty weak. It barely even gives the writer a chance to make comedy out of it. I mean think about it. Bateman owns factory. Company wants to buy out factory. Accident happens in factory. Company is sketchy about buying factory because of legal obligations. A hot temp girl comes along (Kunis). Bateman wants to have an affair, so he pays a gigolo to screw his wife so he doesn’t feel guilty. He ends up not selling the factory. End of story.

SEARIOUSLY! WTF! There's barely anything there to keep the movie going more or less it’s supposed to be a comedy. Do you think that you could make a comedy out of it? Because I know that there is no way I could make that funny.

****END SPOILER****

I expected at least to laugh at more than just the intro. I wasn’t expecting comedic gold like Office Space had, but I was expecting something. I can honestly say that the music did not even catch my ear at all. It sucked also.

All in all if you must see this movie than watch the first 20 minutes and turn it off. It’s not worth your time. However if you want my even more honest opinion, destroy the disk before you even put it in so that you can save yourself and others from the agony you are about to impale upon yourself.

Base Score = 3
+1 for Mila Kunis
+1 for Gene Simmons
-2 for Jason Bateman
-1 for crappy story
+1 for a good intro
-1 for not really being a comedy
=2/10

Last updated: 2010-01-21 13:24:35 by Tolll