Extract Movie Review - No Spoilers

Extract Movie Review -

Director Mike Judge delves into the working class arena again with a follow up to the classic 1999 Office Space. I was very excited to see this film as I love everything Mike Judge does, even Idiocracy, which is highly underrated.

I went in expecting another laugh riot just like Office Space, but it is actually quite a different film. In this film we follow Joel, owner of an extract company, through his trials and tribulations, personal and business related. The film's pace is much slower than I thought it would be, and although the cast is top notch, no one character is developed to the point where one can completely empathize with them, except for Joel of course. Each character plays their role to support Joel and we don't really get caught up too much with any side plots.

The pacing, although slow, is just right and gives you time to build up your own frustrations along with Joel. The whole film is almost a flip flop from Office Space, where in Office Space sided more with the employees and Extract sides with the management.

There were definitely more than a few laugh out loud moments for me, especially the scenes with Ben Affleck, who plays Joel's best friend who also supplies him with free drinks at the bar he tends at and suggests trying various drugs. Kristen Wiig also is hilarious as Joel's wife. Mike Judge also has a really funny cameo as a factory worker. Gene Simmons makes a really odd ball cameo as an ambulance chaser personal injury attorney and is also crazy funny in this small role.

Overall the cast is great and Bateman's performance is extremely strong and carries the movie quite well. His character is unsurprisingly similar to Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, even going so far to using a similar line, "I gotta power through." - Joel and from AD "Keep our heads down and power through." - Michael Bluth. Admittedly only hardcore Arrested Development fans would catch this though.

The scene where Dean (Affleck) convinces Joel (Bateman) to smoke a giant acrylic bong doesn't disappoint, which is one of the reasons I wanted to see the movie in the first place, because I knew there would be some fantastic drug humor, and there is.

If this seems like a really positive review, well that's because it is. Although not nearly as funny as Office Space, it isn't really the same type of movie and the type of humor is just more mild overall, but made me laugh out loud many times. The only negative thing I can really say is that I wish it didn't end when it did and just kept going, which isn't really a negative thing at all. Go see Extract.