No one’s perfect. Even the greatest of athletes fail to come through in the clutch occasionally. The big slugger who knocks one out of the park will occasionally pop one up or whiff with the game on the line. The same is true for directors, who, even with the greatest of resumes come out with a clunker every now and then. Which brings us to Mike Judge, the man behind the film that is the subject of today’s review, Extract. Mike Judge has quite a resume of his own with Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and the film Office Space. Will Mike come through in the clutch again or will he whiff? Unfortunately, he whiffs this time around. Again, no one’s perfect.
Film
One would think that a film by Mike Judge that stars Ben Afleck, Jason Bateman. Kristen Wiig. J.K. Simmons, Gene Simmons and Mila Kunis must be pretty good right and funny to boot? Well, not this time.
Extract takes a look at the employees at a food extract company in California. The owner of the company, Joel (Jason Bateman) is doing rather well, with a very profitable company which is the target of a possible purchase by General Mills that will make Joel rich beyond his dreams. However, he is quite unhappy with his sex life with his wife (Kristen Wigg). His druggie bartender friend, convinces him to hire a man to try to seduce his wife to see if her lack of interest in him is due to her having an affair. He goes along with the plan is is disturbed to find out how easily his wife is seduced.
While all this is going on, there is an accident at the factory where one of the employees loses a testicle and is the subject of the interest of a beautiful con artist (Mila Kunis) who tries to win his affections to steal his money. It turns out that the con artist has also caught the attention of Joel, who seems to think it would OK for him to have an affair with her but not alright for his wife to cheat on him.
While this sounds like a promising plot, I found the film to be slow and uninteresting, even though it clocked in at a rather short 91 minutes. Tried as i might, I just couldn’t get into the characters or the storyline which is rather predictable. If you are a fan of Mike Judge, you may want to check out Extract, but do so on the basis of a rental only. The rest of you may just want to skip this one entirely.
Video
The best way to describe the video on this release is solid if unspectacular. Good but not great is another way to describe it. The film features a fairly natural color palette which I did find to be a bit inconsistent with some scenes skewed to the color cyan and other looking a bit too brown, especially skin tones. Blacks were mediocre however, lacking the deep inky blacks of the best looking films. Detail is good but not great and is a bit inconsistent as well, with excellent levels of detail in some scenes and mediocre detail in others.
At first glance, the film looks good but after watching it for a while, you notice the aforementioned inconsistencies and mediocre black levels. Having not scene the film in theaters, I would doubt that this is the fault of the encoding process and that the Blu-ray release looks just as Mike Judge intended it to look. It is just that I would have preferred more consistent levels of detail and deeper blacks in addition to a better story.
Audio
The problem with the audio on this release isn’t with the overall fidelity of the sound, which is quite good, but with the sound design. Where the audio fails for me is in the use of the surrounds or should I say, lack of use of the surrounds. Yes, this is a very front heavy film with little use of the surrounds, so little in fact that I had to get up to see if the surrounds were really working early in the film.
The surrounds do finally kick on a coupe of occasions but those occasions are few and far between. As noted previously, the overall fidelity of the sound is good sounding quite smooth without any harshness at all. The dialogue track is well recorded and well placed in the mix. Dynamics however are nothing to write home about which is the best way to describe the overall sound of the film.
Special Features
The extras here are pretty sparse. The release does not include a digital copy and is not BD-Live enabled. The extras include deleted scenes and 5 extended scenes that were pared down as included in the film. The main extra is the behind the scenes look at the film and is entitled “Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe” which details how the film was shot in an actual working factory during actual work hours and gives a behind the scenes look at the characters through interviews with Mike Judge and the rest of the cast. This is a rather extended behind the scenes look at the film and the only extra that is really worth your time.
Final Thoughts
Well, no one is perfect and I guess everyone, including Mike Judge is entitled to a clunker. If you are a fan of Mike Judge’s films, you may want to check out Extract. However, I would advise you to do so on the basis of a rental only. The rest of you may want to skip this one entirely.
