starring Jason Bateman & Mila Kunis
In a nutshell: An odd little move with some good qualities, but that feels incomplete
Quick synopsis: Joel owns an extract company. Joel deals with a lot of BS at work and his marriage bores him. He attempts to have an affair with disastrous results.
Content: Mike Judge has done it all. He has created alternative pop-culture icons (Beavis & Butt-Head), successful long-running television shows (King of the Hill ran for 13 seasons!), beloved cult classics (Office Space), and criminally underrated box-office flops (Idiocracy). And he has done it all somewhat under the radar. He doesn't have the name recognition of TV mega-producers J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon despite comparable success. Although I didn't think Extract would be the breakthrough that cemented his place among Hollywood's power brokers, I am a big fan of both Office Space and Idiocracy and thus had high hopes which were summarily not lived up to.
Extract feels like an odd potpourri of styles. It was not immediately recognizable as having been created by the same hand as Judge's other work. It felt a little like some of the mediocre Coen Brothers comedies like Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading. Characters were being quirky just for the sake of being quirky. But it also has some horrible attempts at cheap laughs reminiscent of recent Adam Sandler movies. Along the same lines, it also had a horrible cameo by Gene Simmons, who felt completely and utterly out of place.
In another connection to a Coen movie, the plot starts down the same road as Fargo: a desperate husband initiates a stupid plot that seems destined for disaster from day one. But in Fargo, this results in bloodshed, death, arrests and a memorable woodchipper. In Extract, it results in more goofy characters and a happy little ending where everything works out.
Of course you may have noticed that I gave Extract a mixed review. So, what worked? Shockingly, Ben Affleck as Joel's stoner friend. Most of the characters, including him, were very likable. I even empathized with Joel (Bateman), who executes puts the despicable plot into motion, because I felt bad for him and he seemed like he was actually a nice guy (and because Jason Bateman was really good).
It was the writing that fell short though. The characters are pretty well developed, but the story never kicks into high gear. And just when I anticipated that it was about to, it ended. Sometimes when movies end leaving you wanting more of a conclusion, it is done to be thought provoking. But in Extract that was not the case. I think Judge intended for it to end in a natural place, but the "climax" was so low-key that I didn't even realize that it was supposed to be the climax, which left me feeling rather unfulfilled when the credits started rolling. This was largely because of Mila Kunis' character, Cindy, who I assumed was going to play a much bigger role in this thing. By opening the film with her, Judge gave me the idea that it was her story just as much as it was Joel's, and I held that belief until the very end. But it's not. It's just Joel's story and she was merely a plot device to get Joel to his conclusion. A missed opportunity if I ever saw one.
I wouldn't particularly say "keep away at all costs," because Extract has its charms and is considerably better than many comedies. But the humor isn't as sharp as Office Space and in many ways it feels like a rough draft of what could have been much better.
Rolling rankings:
1. Jackie Brown (#173)
2. Avatar (#176)
3. Sherlock Holmes (#178)
4. Anvil! The Story of Anvil (#172)
5. Big Fan (#180)
6. The Cove (#177)
7. Julie and Julia (#175)
8. Kids (#179)
9. Extract (#181)
10. Angels & Demons (#174)
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