By Greg Vellante
Correspondent

Regardless of how you view it, “Extract” can be described simply by its title. If you view the film as a glass half-full, this is wholly a work of brilliant writer/director Mike Judge, with a few elements of his solid satirical humor extracted from the mix. Although, viewing the film as a glass half-empty, Judge’s comedy seems somewhat vacant, as if it were just a solitary extract from his flowing creativeness.

“Extract” is never a full glass, and while at times the glass seems more empty than full (and occasionally vice-versa), the end result is a spilled cup. Yet, assuming the glass is filled with water, it isn’t that hard of a mess to clean up.

It doesn’t leave any stains or sticky remnants — it’s just a burden.
While Judge tries numerous times throughout the film to find proper way to redemption, the film just never succeeds in pulling itself back up.

But what can you expect? With “Office Space,” Judge already tackled the mundane work life of forcibly mundane individuals who wish to break from their shell of the “everyday.” “Extract” is strikingly similar, replacing cubicles with conveyor lines and forklifts, taking place in an extract plant, owned by Joel (Jason Bateman).

Joel is essentially miserable. After a plant worker suffers a “ball-breaking” accident, and may be possibly looking to sue, Joel is stressed from work only to come home to an annoying neighbor who won’t shut up (a subtly and surprisingly spectacular David Koechner) and a wife (Kristen Wiig) who leaves him sexually frustrated on a regular basis. Things change when Joel falls for a sexy new temp named Cindy (Mila Kunis) who is certainly more than she appears.

What follows from this point forth is an even combination of character study and drug gags. Judge’s characters are nowhere near as memorable as “Office Space’s” Milton or Bill Lumbergh, or “Beavis & Butthead,” or essentially every character on “King of the Hill” (my personal favorite creation of Judge).

Joel is the film’s most “real” character with Bateman locking in a performance of a truly nice guy, while his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) tries to be a Judge archetype, but the character ultimately comes off as an annoying, hippie-fueled trip into futility. The best character by far is indubitably Koechner’s Nathan the neighbor. Annoying, quirky, dull — Koechner outshines his usually repetitive comedic style with something fresh and completely deserving of the film’s few (if any) laughs.

“Extract” is a mild triumph, yet full of disappointment. Times where true laughter occurred within my funny bones were highly scarce, and most of my laughs came from knee-jerk response to my surrounding audience (free movie moochers who would find remotely anything humorous).

Judge deserves his credit — he’s created something unique for sure, but unique doesn’t always mean good. In the case of “Extract,” boredom overpowers absurdity, and the latter occurs so often that it almost becomes stupidity. Judge needs to learn the difference if he wants to create something fresh. Even better, he shouldn’t have tried to change anything at all.

“Extract”
2 out of 4 Stars