ExtractMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 61 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Judge is in the business of social satire, and his laughs can sting, but his movie is a comic salute to free enterprise. And, boy, do we need it now. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    Isn't an instant classic, but it bumps along agreeably. Read full review

  • 75
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Affleck ought to do more quirky character roles rather than leading-man parts in action films. Bateman plays his low-key straight man/protagonist to perfection. Read full review

  • 63
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Sort of entertaining, but lacks the focus and comic energy of Judge's "Office Space" (1999), and to believe that Suzie would be attracted to the gigolo requires not merely the suspension of disbelief, but its demolition. Read full review

  • 58
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Couldn't Mike Judge, with his acid wit, have come up with a better title for a suburban-schlub comedy than ?Extract? Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times |

    While Extract is mildly amusing and a slice of a mostly working-class world that doesn't make it into comedy that much anymore, it's not completely convincing as a movie. Read full review

  • 40
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    Not a single person in this ensemble comedy doesn't suffer from colossal stupidity. Read full review

  • 40
    Variety | Justin Chang

    The picture's attempts at comic portraiture feel sketchy at best, more or less assigning each character a single, belabored trait. Read full review

  • 40
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    What's most striking about Extract, beyond the scarcity of jokes and absence of actual filmmaking, is its deep well of sourness, which at times borders on misanthropy. Read full review

  • 20
    Washington Post |

    May be the most disappointing American comedy of the decade, partly because it's jokeless and joyless but mostly because it squanders an all-star cast of superb comic talent. Read full review

View more reviews for Extract on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Work-set comedy dwells on sex, marriage; not for young kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this lukewarm workplace comedy from Mike Judge (of King of the Hill and Office Space fame) includes a good bit of talk about sex, but no actual sex scenes or nudity (though many of the male characters do their share of leering at women). Three men smoke pot with a bong, and there's some social drinking and salty language (including "f--k" and "s--t"), as well as a few comments that stray into sexist/stereotype territory. The main character contemplates adultery and comes up with a way to do so without guilt (or so he thinks).
  • Families can talk about the movie's style of humor. Who is it intended to appeal to? Does it succeed?
  • Are the movie's characters portrayed fully or stereotypically? What did you think of how the male characters viewed the female ones? Do you think they saw them as sex objects?
  • What do you think of Joel’s relationship with his wife? Are theirchallenges typical of a modern marriage? How did they get to thispoint in their life?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Throughout the movie, characters question loyalty in all its forms -- to your marriage, to your workplace, but in the end, the "right thing" is pretty much enforced. Some characters make comments that verge on sexist and or stereotypical (leering at women, comments regarding different races, etc.), but it doesn't get too extreme.
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: Just about everyone behaves badly in the movie: The lead character hires a gigolo to bed his wife so he can cheat guilt-free, another character steals and cons her way through the film (sometimes gleefully), yet another is prejudiced, and the male characters do their share of leering at the women. But it’s all played in jest, and Joel is basically a nice guy in the most fundamental sense of the word.
What to watch for
  • violence false1 Violence: A guy beats someone up, though all viewers see is the shiner he gets afterward, rather than the actual hit. A woman literally scolds a neighbor to death.
  • sex false3 Sex: Sex and hooking up are implied and discussed (including phrases like "hit that" and "give it to you") quite frequently, but it doesn't get too raunchy, and nothing physical -- not even underwear-clad characters -- is seen. There's some leering at attractive women on the part of men, and a guy tries to kiss a girl, but she demurs. A husband pays another man to seduce his wife.
  • language false4 Language: Crude and rude, with everything from  “s--t” (many times) and a few uses of "f--k" to "laid," "damn," "c--k," "ass," "damn," "hell," "goddamn," and "oh my God."
  • consumerism false2 Consumerism: A smattering of product placements and logos, including Best Western, Heineken, and Pepsi.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Social drinking, plus a scene in which a character smokes dope via a bong. A man encourages his best friend to take a pill thinking it’s a Xanax, but it’s actually a harder drug (“Special K”).
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

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