The Last Movie I Saw

I have to admit that I find Mike Judge an oddly enigmatic talent. Most everything he does revolves around the idea that people are rather stupid, yet it seems to me that he harbors a great deal of affection for his characters, regardless of their almost universal dimness. In short bursts, as in the Beavis and Butthead cartoons that made his reputation, there was no time for the latter tendency to temper the first, resulting in some truly cutting comic gems. In the long form of a feature picture, like the new Extract which I saw this past weekend, these tendencies almost cancel each other out. Instead of a viciously misanthropic black comedy, we get a mostly mundane narrative with a feel-good ending, made only intermittently funny by a couple of inspired performances (Ben Affleck, Dustin Milligan, and especially Gene Simmons-- yes, that Gene Simmons) and set pieces (like the session with Affleck's intimidating drug buddy or the legal negotiations over an employee's workplace injury). I hesitate to say that this makes a bad film-- there's something almost endearing about the way things are appropriately resolved for virtually every character. I guess these traits shouldn't have surprised me, as I felt the same way about Judge's earlier Office Space (I missed Idiocracy, which some have told me is pretty good). But, based on Beavis and Butthead especially, I keep thinking he's got the capacity to produce a really laugh-out-loud darkly hilarious classic, and Extract surely is not that.