J.K. Simmons (left) and Jason Bateman (right) in Extract. Photo courtesy of Miramax Film Corp.

Mike Judge has a knack for creating characters that are intimately familiar. Anyone who hung out in the parking lot after high school knows a Beavis or a Butt-Head. Anyone who’s worked in a cubicle has met Milton. The characters Judge creates draw people into his movies, past their flaws and into their lives.

Extract accomplishes much of this. The characters are instantly recognizable, in the most cringe-inducing way possible. The scrunchie-haired woman in a fanny pack and kitten sweater? Yeah, she would have a teddy bear in a tutu on her purse.

Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of a factory that makes bottled extracts. Fans of Arrested Development will appreciate his reactions to his feckless employees and friends. He is a put-upon man, with an unsatisfying marriage and a company he’s trying desperately to sell. Cindy (Mila Kunis) appears to be the solution to his first problem, a hot stranger with three buttons undone that shows up to scam anyone and everyone she can. The movie is similar to Office Space: Joel tries to get the girl while figuring out his purpose as a creator of extract. But instead of driving the action with a plan to embezzle company funds and smash photocopiers, Joel is listening to his moron friend Dean (Ben Affleck) and digging himself deeper into accidental drug use and poorly-planned schemes (the two of which being not unrelated).

It’s Extract’s similarities to Office Space that make the movie funny, but it’s the differences that make the movie compelling. The perfectly soundtracked scenes and slo-mo sequences are undeniably great, and the giant bong hits are sure to crack up Apatow fans looking for slightly less sophisticated humor. Plus, you know, a guy loses his ball. Comedy gold.

But Judge has spent the past nearly two decade writing for losers. It’s a new game to see him tackle the boss’s perspective — a self-started and successful Joel — and take on the boneheaded employees, but it reveals the same thing. Joel’s not much less of a loser than Butt-Head; he may be more of one, since he’s incapable of saying what he’s thinking. All of the characters are complex and hysterical, and it would take a three-hour director’s cut to give them all the face time they deserve. But it’s Joel that viewers are rooting for, even when he’s being, objectively, a moron and a jerk. Judge’s ensembles are full of better characters than most movies’ leads, but he still manages to have one person stick out. It’s the reason Office Space did better on DVD sales than it did in theaters. He writes the kind of characters that people want to sit around on the couch with.

Grade: A

Bottom Line: Extract is so good, we kind of forgot about the Arrested Development movie. Kind of.