Mike Judge Ends the Summer with a Whimper in "Extract".

Ten years ago, Mike Judge burst onto the filmmaking scene with his directorial debut, "Office Space". Although a flop at the box office, it has since risen to extraordinary levels of cult fame. Also well known for his animated series', "Beavis & Butthead" and "King of the Hill", Judge has established himself as the master of satirizing a specific kind of middle-class monotony - from the long hours in the cubicle to standing around the grill with a few beers.

In "Extract", Judge's newest effort, his focus is not on the worker drones, but rather the successful man in charge who has to put up with them. A peculiar subject, indeed, threatening to alienate just about all of an audience. But Judge's satire is far from sharp-edged, and "Extract"'s sole intention seems to be to cash in on a few easy chuckles before we declare the summer movie season officially over.

"Arrested Development"'s Jason Bateman stars as Joel, the owner of a flavor extract company. At his bottling plant, he has to put up with his employee's incompetence on a daily basis - one day, things go so awry that a floor manager-in-training, Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), loses a testicle. When Cindy (Mila Kunis), a highly manipulative con-woman, gets the news, she attempts to cash in on the incident by seducing Step and convincing him to sue the company. This impending lawsuit puts a damper on Joel's plans of selling the business to General Mills, who is not interested in purchasing until things have cleared up.

Meanwhile, Joel's marriage has been far from satisfying. His graphic designer wife, Suzie (Kristen Wiig), is more interested in "Dancing in the Stars" than intimacy. He concocts a scheme that involves hiring a male prostitute (Dustin Milligan) to seduce his wife, which therefore allows him to cheat on her guilt-free. This brilliant plan, of course, was all established while Joel was under the influence of a horse tranquilizer that his burnout friend, Dean (Ben Affleck), had mistakingly identified.

"Extract" is pleasant company - it's charming, inoffensive, and completely light, but yet there's something missing. The implausibility of many of the situations these characters find themselves in becomes increasingly distancing, and to say it ends with a whimper would be an understatement. The film feels more like a series of vaguely connected skits than a fully-realized motion picture.

Mike Judge has always had problems with distribution - "Office Space" wasn't properly advertised, and his last effort, "Idiocracy", was a complete throwaway by 20th Century Fox. "Extract" is being released on one of the worst weekends of the year, and although it's unfortunate that a man with such talents can't find the backing he deserves, this is not the film that'll catapult him to mainstream acclaim. As talented as all the cast is, this particular world only retains steam in short bursts - it'd make for an entertaining half hour series, but as a ninety minute production it's a bit flat.