Review // EXTRACT - It's 'aight'.

I'd been waiting the better part of a decade to see James Cameron's Avatar by the time I finally sat down in a theatre to watch it. But, somehow I managed to temper my huge expectations in order to give it a fighting chance. I didn't want the actual film to crumple under the weight of the imaginary masterpiece in my head.

And yet, for some odd reason I went into Mike Judge's latest minor comedy Extract with sky high anticipation. That was silly.

I saw Office Space over ten years ago now, at an early preview screening before its release. For me, it came out of nowhere and really bowled me over, absolutely killing the audience. Then years later I kept seeing Judge's next film, Idiocracy appear in EW's Fall Movie Preview, then their Spring Movie Preview, then Summer Movie Preview, and this kept going on and on without it ever actually getting a release.

Finally, something like 2-3 years after first hearing about the film, Fox unceremoniously dumped it into a minuscule number of screens spread out over a few cities. And I'm not talking about a limited release prestige run to build buzz, you know New York, LA etc. They chose Chicago, (LA naturally) and then 3 cities in Texas. Fox tossed it away like a piece of garbage, which is odd considering Judge had been delivering them a consistent ratings earner in King of the Hill, for their television division. The release gave the impression of a parent spanking an errant child.

Luckily, Idiocracy came to Toronto at the same time, well Etobicoke actually. I had to convince my friends with a car to drive me all the way out to the suburbs to see it at a multiplex off the highway. When the lights went down, there were maybe 25 people in the theatre.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a review of Idiocracy, so to shorten things up: I fucking loved it. It was very funny, and very angry, turning a satirical mirror back on America and revealing something truly ugly. It's not a perfect film, it loses steam and some jokes aren't as clever as others, but it remains one of my favorite comedies of the 00's.

And this is why I brought Extract home with such a silly level of anticipation. Of course, Judges comedic canvas is much smaller in this film, he's not trying to skewer, oh say, all of Western civilization. Just the sometimes clashing pheromones that tend to collect in the atmosphere of any workplace.

Jason Bateman stars as Jason Bateman, the same hapless, put-upon drip he has perfected through a couple seasons of Arrested Development and 150 other comedies. Not since Ben Stiller has there been an actor so utterly committed to playing the same character in every film (see also Michael Cera). Luckily, Batman is the best in the business at doing hapless and put-upon and is usually the best thing about a crappy comedy.

Alongside Batemen are stalwart comedy players, Kristin Wiig and David Koechner, playing his distant wife and annoying neighbor respectively. Everybody is up to their usual standards, but the jokes just aren't there. I chuckled sparsely, I didn't really laugh like I did in Office Space or Idiocracy. A lot of the writing seemed beneath Judge somehow, like jokes about man-whoring and most of the catch-phrasey lines from Ben Affleck's aggressive self-medicator. Even Affleck's long hair is supposed to be funny somehow, but it isn't.

I really felt like Bateman was going to be the perfect match for Judge's comic sensibilities, fitting his alter ego like a glove: the weary man of moderate intelligence besieged by idiots. And he certainly would be, but Extract's script doesn't really give much to work with. The secret ingredient of both Office Space and Idiocracy, is anger. Anger at having to jump through useless hoops while swallowing the bitter pill of office politics. Anger that stupidity and ignorance will always trump reason, science and good breeding.

Extract doesn't give Bateman enough injustice to rail against, in fact, at times he is the architect of his own trouble, continuously following the advice of fools. Even when his life seems to be sliding towards disaster, Bateman never really gets all that excited about it, and as a result, neither did I. I would still prefer 100 Extracts to 1 Paul Blart, but as a Mike Judge comedy it was just "aight".