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September 9, 2009

"Extract": No "Office Space"

By STEVE OUELLETTE, Movie Review

I knew "Office Space"; "Office Space" was a friend of mine. You, "Extract," are no "Office Space."

Mike Judge's latest workplace comedy, "Extract," has been linked extensively with his seminal office cubical humorfest, "Office Space," but that's an unfair and unflattering comparison.

"Extract" is a fairly original, reasonably intelligent and passably amusing comedy — with an excellent cast — but it doesn't touch the same nerves that "Office Space" tickled, and it doesn't contain near as many laughs.

Told from management's point of view, instead of that of the worker drones, the film stars Jason Bateman as Joel, a clean-cut, All-American entrepreneur who runs his own small flavor extract factory. He's a likable guy who has problem upon problem thrust upon him: incompetent employees, potential lawsuits, possible mergers, annoying neighbors, a sexy con artist and marital woes.

Bateman is very good and very deadpan in a role reminiscent of his character, Michael Bluth, in the late great "Arrested Development" — the sane man in the middle of lunacy. Could this really be his first lead role since 1987's, er, memorable "Teen Wolf Too"? Unfortunately, "Arrested Development" packed more laughs into a 22-minute episode than "Extract" puts into its hour and a half.

J.K. Simmons (who worked with Bateman in "Juno") is good, as usual, as Joel's business partner Brian. Mila Kunis ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall") plays a flirtatious grifter who begins working at the extract plant when she gets a whiff of money. A subdued Kristen Wiig ("Saturday Night Live") is the wife who sexually frustrates Joel.

A bearded Ben Affleck sits in the middle of many a plot machination as Joel's bartender buddy Dean, who thinks he has a hare-brained scheme or a narcotic to fix any problem. KISS veteran Gene Simmons seems out of place as a cheesy accident attorney, but David Koechner gets laughs as Joel's grating neighbor, and Dustin Milligan ("90210") is pretty good as a dim-witted amateur gigolo.

"Extract" brings smiles and smirks, but not a lot of outright laughs. Most of the plant employees are annoying rather than amusing — with the possible exception of Clifton Collins Jr.'s ("Sunshine Cleaning") self-important, would-be floor manager Step.

"Extract" is simply not as sharp as "Office Space," but it's probably in the same orbit with Judge's 2006 comedy "Idiocracy." I'll give it that.

Rental Recommendation: Try out the first season of "Arrested Development" on DVD. Grade: A.

E-mail Steve Ouellette at: ouellette1918@gmail.com

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