“What would life be like walkin’ around without testicles?” That question, strangely enough, is answered in Mike Judge’s and Miramax Studios new release of Extract on Blu-ray. Fans of Office Space and Mike Judge’s everyman humor will appreciate and love what Extract on Blu-ray offers.

Joel (Jason Bateman) lives a pretty successful albeit boring life.  He owns an extract company, is unhappy and unfulfilled by his wife (Kristen Wiig), and is constantly harassed by his neighbor Nathan (David Koechner). Just as General Mills proposes a potential buyout, a freak accident occurs and Step (Clifton Collins Jr.) loses half his manhood and threatens to sue.  Looking to collect on the millions proposed in the lawsuit is the con-artist Cindy (Mila Kunis), who gets a job at the factory and works on dating Step. 

Joel, while hiring Cindy, mistakes her cons for affections and contemplates having an affair with her.  Those thoughts cause him to test his own wife’s loyalty and he hires Brad (Dustin Milligan) as a pool boy to persuade her to sleep with him so Joel can in turn sleep with Cindy without guilt. His plan backfires and he becomes more upset with his life. Soon after, his deteriorating relationship with his wife and the fear of losing his company force Joel to grow a sack and he begins confronting the things in his life that have caused it to become this boring. In doing so he keeps his company and mends the relationship with his wife. 

Highlights

As far as extras go, Extract is pretty thin.  The single disc Blu-ray version is all that’s available and only has the feature, a deleted scene, some extended scenes, and a Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe Featurette on it. The transfer here is solid and the sound is good, but nothing about this movie shows off the true capabilities of Blu-ray. None of the extended or deleted scenes are really memorable, but they are all finished and probably should have been left in the film anyway.  Sadly, there is no “director’s cut” option to add them in either. The extended scenes show “extended” on the screen during the portion that was cut out and I really liked this feature because it isn’t always clear in other Blu-ray movie extended scenes what portion is extended or changed for the final release.
The Secret Recipe feature is a behind the scenes documentary that describes how the movie was filmed in a real working water bottling company. Until seeing this, I had known that moving parts and set pieces in the background were actually the water bottling process in motion. The documentary isn't very lengthy, but all the stars add a little info to it which makes it worth watching.  As a side note, when or if you pause the film it displays the scene name and number on the screen.  I think it’s a nice little feature that I haven’t found on too many Blu-ray discs and it makes it a lot easier to find the last scene you were at if you happen to stop the film altogether.

Overview

Comedy films generally don’t wow me on Blu-ray, but Mike Judge’s awkward brand of humor coupled with a working man’s triumph over the mundane makes this another excellent film worth watching.  The lack of special features on this one hurts this version quite a bit, but I think the movie is good enough to carry most of the weight.  It’s no Office Space, but you will enjoy Extract.

ComicsOnline gives Extract on BLu-ray 3.5 out of 5 worthless pool boys.

Buy Extract on Blu-ray at Amazon.com now

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