In case you haven’t noticed, I always farm movie reviews out to you guys. First, I don’t like writing reviews myself, because let’s be honest, who cares what I think about anything? Also, as we’ve mentioned before, both Jeff and I have strong biases that don’t allow us to be evenhanded in this sort of thing.
In this case, the bias is that Mike Judge is my Tarantino. No other filmmaker has ever spoken more directly to my heart, and thusly, I will see anything he does, and give it the same level of care and attention I give to those Food Network Challenge shows that run on the weekend. And not the lame-o ones, where they’re in Hawaii competing to see who can make the biggest mixed drink in a coconut; but the good ones, where they make Disney character cakes but they don’t leave themselves enough time to finish the characters and so the Princess Jasmine they tried to mold from sugar looks like she has had Mickey Rourke calibre facial reconstruction surgery and belongs in the cast of Real Housewives of New York.
That said, the premise of Extract hasn’t been doing much to win me over. From the Extract website:
To the outside eye, Joel Reynold (Jason Bateman) seems to have everything. After all, being the owner of a business he built from the ground up – with its patented brand of culinary extracts – should make the “Extract King” a happy man.However, if Joel hasn’t reached his front door by 8 o’clock, he’ll find his wife, Suzie (Kristen Wiig) cinching up her sweatpants – and about as interested in him as he is in her mastery of supermarket coupon design. Sexually frustrated, Joel confides in his best pal, Dean (Ben Affleck), a barkeep – and soon finds himself wrapped up in a convoluted scheme to make Suzie cheat on him first with a dim-witted gigolo (Dustin Milligan) – thereby allowing him to pursue beautiful new employee Cindy (Mila Kunis) with a clear conscience.
Wah-wah-wah. Any time a movie revolves around somebody not getting any, I file it under “Woody Allen” or “American Pie” and turn my attention to other things (read = Food Network Challenge #263, Battle: Peanuts). But this is Mike Judge, and he is the thinking man’s Kevin Smith (that doesn’t even make sense, but I am the reviewer and this is the internet, so you will accept it as fact), so I was willing to give it a chance.
Your opinion of Extract will, I think, be dictated by two things: your age, and the degree to which you liked Office Space and Idiocracy. Nowhere in Extract‘s premise does “the system” get as
royally lambasted as it did in either of those movies; the problem this time is less “stupid people,” and more “I’m successful, what now” ennui. Which I think you might not get when you’re like 20. But I am not 20. I am way, way older than twenty. So when Jason Bateman battles the desire to make nostalgia-fueled bad choices, I’m right there with him, holding his hand, listening to Bad English records (…because we’re both so old. Try to keep up).
Also, Clifton Collins Jr. is in this, and he (spoiler alert) loses a nut in a forklift accident. What am I, made of stone?
Anyway, my (belaboured) point is that this movie treads over territory similar to Judge’s previous work, insofar as the main character is the lone voice of reason in a world full of Dax Shepherds.
Jason Bateman is basically Michael Bluth running a food extract factory, which gets another big thumbs up from me. Kristen Wiig is really good as Suzie, and Mike Judge gets full marks for writing three-dimensional female characters. Ben Affleck is fantastic (can someone make sure the internet didn’t burst into flames as I typed that?) and the movie is basically a parade of “hey, it’s THAT GUY”-s.
In short, Extract is funny and well made, though, in my opinion, more contemplative and subdued than any of Judge’s previous work (yeah, you heard me, I just made the bold statement that this movie is more contemplative and subdued than Beavis and Butthead do America). I recommend it highly.
4 power rangers of 5 (only because if I ever give anything 5 the universe will collapse on itself).
