Don't you hate corporations? Sure you do, you just don't know it yet.

Viewing 2003's The Corporation might just pick the crust of complacency from your sleepy veiled eyes and will have you excommunicating the likes of Sam Walton back to the flaming caverns of hell from whence he came -- or maybe you'll just write your local congressperson.

The Corporation is a documentary based on a book by Joel Bakan and directed by Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar.

A central idea in the film is that, legally speaking, a corporation is treated like a person. A strange concept, but true, a corporation has the same legal rights as human beings do. The film entertains this legal notion and in the style of a psychiatrist, analyzes the psyche of these corporations through examples and case studies as if it they were people, and it turns out you probably wouldn't want to be friends them. The film likens a corporation to a psychopath.

The documentary delves into case studies exemplifying the raw power and exploitative nature of the corporate machine. In one segment, journalists from Fox share how they were extorted into altering a story that reflected poorly on a corporation that manufactured a dubious milk-enhancing hormone banned in Europe and Canada. The journalists found that the hormone was responsible for infecting udders, which then required treatment via antibiotics, which would then find their way through the cow into the milk we drink. The hormone-cow milk was alleged to ultimately be responsible for reducing our resistance to disease -- pretty diabolical, eh? The journalists tried to expose this dairy debacle, and when they wouldn't change their story, they were fired due to the corporate ties between the hormone-producing corporation and Fox.

Although the film condemns typical corporate behavior, it does try and imbue the viewer with a sense of hope for more humanely run corporations. For example, one CEO who controlled the largest carpet producing company in the world awoke one day to an epiphany that his company was selfishly damaging the environment and decided to do something about it. He overhauled operations and has greatly reduced his corporation's "footprint," or the amount of harm a corporation does to the environment, and is trying to get others to do the same.

However, the problems with corporate politics are far from being resolved.

There is a general apathy towards curbing corporate power.

Most people don't realize the degree of control corporations have over politics, culture and the environment; and those who do know don't really seem to care. In one of the closing remarks, Michael Moore was asked how he is able to make anti-corporate movies through corporate film companies. He said companies like the ones making his films will try and make money any way possible, even though his movies bite the hand that feeds them.

The corporation knows his movies will sell. And also, they are counting on the viewer not taking any sort of action after seeing movies like The Corporation.

To anchor it with some credibility, the film is laden with interviews from big names like Noam Chompsky, Naomi Klein and Milton Friedman, and is sure to inject your false consciousness with enough truth to let you get a peek at how big business can control lives.