Movie Review: Extract

September 3, 2009 by Brendan
Filed under: Movie News, Movie Reviews

Extract Movie Review

In Extract, Jason Bateman plays Joel Reynold, the successful owner of an extract factory, who seems to have a whole lot going for him. He’s got a great business, a nice car, a hot wife (well, semi-hot) and a big house. What more does he need? On the outside his life seems fine and dandy. But behind the scenes, there are problems.

His wife (played by Kristen Wiig) never wants to have sex – her track pants are the barricade to nirvana. His factory is in danger of closing because of an impending lawsuit as a result of a horrible accident that left a guy named “Step” (Clifton Collins Jr.) rather stepless. He’s got one of the most annoying neighbours in the history of neighbours (played perfectly by David Koechner). And his staff is as competent as Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber.

Joel confides his problems to his bartender friend Dean (Ben Affleck) who proceeds to hatch a plan to pay a male gigolo to sleep with Joel’s wife so he won’t feel guilty when he tries to do the horizontal hokey-pokey with the new hot girl working in his plant (Mila Kunis). Not a bad plan if you ask me.

Of course, with a movie written and directed by Mike Judge, you can expect that things are not going to go smoothly for Joel Reynold, the extract plant, Dean’s master plan and the one-balled lawsuit.

In a summer that has it’s share of hilarious movies – The Hangover was great, as was Bruno. Funny People certainly had its moments and, hell, even Julie & Julia was rather humorous. Extract has to rank in the middle of the summer’s comedies. It wasn’t nearly as bad as, let’s say, Night at the Museum 2 or The Ugly Truth. I never bothered seeing Land of the Lost or Year One so I won’t entirely judge them but I haven’t heard one good thing about either of those movies. It’s better than The Goods. I can assure you I will never see Dance Flick but let’s just say it’s better.

Even though Extract isn’t as good as the best or as bad as the worst, it’s exacly what that makes it to be – a middle of the road, average movie. Yes, it has some funny moments. The characters are solid and for the most part, likeable. Everyone, from Jason Bateman to Ben Affleck to the male gigolo, does a solid job (in fact the gigolo is probably the funniest guy in the whole movie). I just found the script for the movie to be weak and unamusing, too often. And I don’t think I’m the only one who felt this. The theatre where I watched the movie was eerily quiet. It had more than one scene where you would hear one or two or maybe even a dozen people laughing hysterically but the other 200 people in the theatre would be chuckling or staring blankly.

I feel in a summer where we got our fair share of laughs from Zach Galifianakis, Sacha Baron Cohen and Adam Sandler that Extract didn’t have that side-splitting performance that we have come to expect from your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill comedy. The bottom line is that Extract is a likeable movie with amiable characters and enjoyable moments but it does nothing to stand out. That probably doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement and that’s what I want it to be – more of a warning that this movie isn’t going to blow you away but it won’t make you throw darts at Mike Judge’s picture either. (6 out of 10)

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