Mike Judge has to be some sort of zen master in hilarious stupidity. The writer/director has created gold in shows like "Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill" and the workplace cult comedy "Office Space." But the only thing he's responsible for in his latest comic offering, "Extract," is his trademark dumb humor with a lot of darkness, few laughs and even occasional boredom, despite some solid performances.

The owner of a flavor extract company, Joel (Jason Bateman) daily and diplomatically deals with his dim-witted employees while having dreams of selling off his company and retiring. Of course, his time away from the office isn't any easier thanks to his bothersome neighbor Nathan (David Koechner, in grating form) and his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig), who frequently denies Joel's sexual advances to curl up in chastity belt-esque sweat pants for "Dancing With The Stars."

But his dreams of selling his business go awry when a factory accident causes an ambitious worker, Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), to lose a bit of his manhood and file a lawsuit against the company. Of course, he might not be as tempted if the easy-on-the-eyes, kleptomaniac intern Cindy (Mila Kunis) wasn't seducing Step and Joel with full intentions of milking the company dry and making off with Step's settlement.

The movie is peppered with everyone from A-list actors, typical scene-stealers and random cameos. Ben Affleck plays Dean, the long-haired, shaggy druggie/bar owner giving Joel less than great advice. J.K. Simmons plays Brian, Joel's second-in-command and the first person to forget an employee's name (he calls them all "Dinkus"), and Beth Grant pops up as a disgruntled employee accusing everyone else of wrongdoing. And the award for random cameo of the year goes to Gene Simmons, who plays an obnoxious lawyer itching to take Joel to the cleaners.

Sounds like a great scenario for big laughs, right? You'd be mistaken. The darkness is definitely present, as Joel hires a dumb gigolo (played with brilliant boneheaded-ness by Dustin Milligan) to have sex with his wife so he can cheat with Cindy with a clean conscience. And a scene where Joel experiments with pot is a gut-buster. But other than that, small laughs only come in spurts as the material doesn't ever really kick into gear. Despite the fact that nobody gives a bad performance and Jason Bateman carries the movie well, everybody's basically a one-dimensional cartoon sketch, only unlike "Office Space," they're not nearly as funny and hardly ever endearing.

This comedy is being hailed as Mike Judge going back to work. Too bad the big laughs never clock in.

Blake Hannon | Stjoelive staff