Quirky characters and deadpan humor are not enough to save Extract, a new slice-of-life style film that might have been a nice alternative to explosions and cheesy romantic comedies if it had managed to find something new to bring to the cinema.

Extract stars Jason Bateman as Joel, the founder and owner of a flavor extract plant who is bored with his monotonous job and sexless marriage. Joel sifts between three plotlines, each of which is equally thin.

The first involves an employee injury that threatens Joel's chances of selling the company and finally retiring. In the second, Cindy (Mila Kunis), an attractive young woman but pathological liar, works her way into the company and mind of the injured worker, whom she gets to contemplate a lawsuit.The third: Joel's attempt to guiltlessly have an affair with Cindy.

While Extract does have some giggle-out-loud moments, it ultimately falls flat. The dialogue is not witty enough to be memorable, and while workplace humor is hot right now, it doesn't take enough variation on the genre.

The film's biggest problem, however, is a lack of focus that leaves the audience wondering, "So what?" The plotlines stray so far from each other that it's a wonder they are part of the same film. Scenes involving Joel and his friend Dean (Ben Affleck) attempting to get Joel's wife (an unusually stoic Kristen Wiig) to cheat on him are actually very funny, but they are so long and disjointed from the rest of the film's story they almost feel useless.

Another element that fall's flat is Affleck's character. Affleck plays Joel's long-haired, spaced-out friend who dispenses "guidance" to Joel over nightcaps at his bar after work. While Affleck plays the character well, his performance reeks of an attempt to gain attention for playing someone "different" or "unexpected," a la James Franco in Pineapple Express, who did it very well. Dean's moments are not as witty as the film would like you to think they are, and they come off as a tad desperate for Affleck.

The film also employs Gene Simmons as a weird local lawyer in a role that felt so gimmicky, it's shocking his scenes didn't wind up on the cutting room floor.

It does have some strong qualities -- the first being Jason Bateman. While Bateman is guilty of playing "himself" in many roles (and he certainly does that here), he gets away with this because there is something surprisingly watchable about him. As in his performance in Juno, Bateman is a joy to watch, delivering his lines with snappy ease, especially a sharp one-liner toward the end regarding a possible result of his wife's promiscuity.

The other is any scene involving Joel's nosey and painfully annoying neighbor, Nathan (David Koechner). Everyone knows a Nathan -- he stops near Joel's car when he drives by to talk through the window, invites him to events he doesn't want to go to, and in general, never stops talking. Nathan's scenes are some of the best in the film and almost make the whole thing worth watching.

Ultimately, Extract has elements that might have worked best on the small screen, but they don't add up to enough to make a feature-length big-screen film worth the price of admission.

Grade: C