Mike Judge created the TV shows Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill, but he’s best known to me for his 1999 comedy Office Space. Chronicling the story of a 9-5 cubical drone who really hates his job, it’s an amusing and satisfying little movie that grows on you each time you watch it. Like Dazed and Confused, it’s one of those movies where watching it again is like hanging out with an old friend.

It tanked in theaters, so Judge kept a low profile at his day job on King of the Hill for a while. But after Office Space became a bona fide cult classic, he was suddenly able to get another movie greenlit and went to work on Idiocracy, a movie about an average Joe who gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up five hundred years later to find out that everyone on Earth is a moron.

Not a bad concept, but unfortunately, the result was awful. 20th Century Fox buried it in a limited release. It still has a few defenders and can now be seen regularly on Comedy Central, but come on guys…it’s just bad. All the situational, observant humor from Office Space was gone.

That’s why I was looking forward to Extract, Judge’s new movie that returns to the present day. The trailers seemed to borrow some of the themes Judge used in Office Space — workplace humor, a guy trying and failing to deal with relatable problems — without looking like a retread.

Now that I’ve seen it, I’m happy to report that it’s a lot better than Idiocracy. But is it Office Space good? No.

Extract stars Jason Bateman, of Arrested Development and Juno, as Joel, the owner of a factory that produces extract — almond extract, strawberry extract, you name it. The story takes place over the span of a couple weeks in which he runs into a lot of bad luck.

First there’s trouble at the factory: Step (Clifton Collins Jr.) loses a testicle, and later decides to sue. But there’s also trouble at home: Joel only has sex with his wife (Kristen Wiig) every couple of months, and it’s killing him. Then there’s a new threat on both fronts: the beautiful new temp Cindy (Mila Kunis), who, we find out in the first scene, is a con woman.

The only through-line the movie has is Joel’s increasing panic. That seems like it should work, but the movie leaves you somewhat unsatisfied. I think that’s because nothing really gels into one plot, meaning there’s effectively no climax — just a series of scenes where things get a little bit wrapped up until Judge decides that’s enough to end the movie with.

There’s also not a very good balance among the many subplots, and a few setups with no payoffs,