Mike Judge’s “King of the Hill” has found a large and loyal audience. Still, though, many people I talk to give only a shrug and an “it’s okay” when asked how they like it. Finding it hilarious myself, I never really understood this prevalent lack of enthusiasm toward the show until my friend explained it to me perfectly: “King of the Hill” is a cartoon where nothing cartoony happens. It could just as easily be live action.
Judge’s foray into live action has yielded the cult film and mission statement for cubicle drones Office Space and the disappointing though ominously prescient Idiocracy. His latest film, Extract, finds Judge back on more familiar ground, trading in his blue collar for white, and mining the absurd mundanities of such a life for awkward laughs of recognition.
Jason Bateman is Joel Reynolds, owner of a factory that makes extracts and extract accessories. Despite his success and enthusiasm for making flavor extracts like mom used to, Joel’s life has become a string of annoying encounters. Whether it’s the always-somebody-else’s-fault cat lady working the factory floor, the incessant chatter of his dull and nosy neighbor, or the sex embargo enforced by his wife (Wiig) and her 8 o’clock sweatpants curfew, Joel’s only solace is at the local sports bar, where, feeling at the end of his rope, he heeds the advice of his bartender and only friend, the stoner/healer Dean (Affleck).
Like most of Judge’s work, the chaos that comes from Joel’s attempts to break out of his stale existence is handled in the most casual and non-flashy way. Judge’s writing and directing is almost an anti-style in its subtlety, rarely telling the audience, “Hey, this is a joke…laugh.”
There are many inspired moments that will become even funnier with repeated viewings, but the film as a whole lacks cohesion. It’s not as unwatchably high-concept as Idiocracy, nor is it as transcendently relatable as the cubicle hell of Office Space. It lies somewhere between the two. But it is most like “King of the Hill,” proving that Mike Judge is often better digested in the form of a cartoon, lest the situations become too familiar, going from annoying, to funny, and back to annoying again.
