Ill-Informed Gadfly

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I get the sense that the Academy began to regret giving an Oscar to Diablo Cody before she had finished her acceptance speech. She won for writing “Juno,” which used contrived hipster dialogue to mask its cloying conventionality. In Cody’s follow-up, a failed attempt at comic horror called “Jennifer’s Body,” the verbal cartwheels are even less well integrated. For example, a teenager describes a catatonic mother whose son has died as a “zombie mannequin robot statue.” Not only is that excessive and unfunny, it exposes how remarkably callous “Jennifer’s Body” is. Cody doesn’t make any larger satirical point as she sneers at death and grief. A nightclub fire that kills several people is staged so casually that it’s clear Cody views it as merely a means to an end, a way to make a small town so numb that no one notices the subsequent murder spree by a demonically possessed cheerleader. Megan Fox plays Jennifer in a fit of high camp, and it’s hard to tell if it’s intentional. Amanda Seyfried is more watchable as Jennifer’s needy best friend. Her name is Needy, which I concede is kind of cute. The only standout in the cast is Adam Brody, who plays a wannabe emo rock star with exuberant amorality. But it’s a small role, an amusing distraction in a movie that never jells. “Jennifer’s Body” is a limp and tedious parody that can’t seem to figure out what it’s making fun of, or why. Committed filmmakers can weave terror and humor together, as we saw this year in “Drag Me to Hell” and “Orphan.” Cody’s effort looks even more lame in their wake.

Steven Soderbergh was among the most exciting filmmakers of the 1990s. He’s probably been the most insufferable filmmaker of the 2000s. Since “Ocean’s Eleven,” he’s been farting around, making movies for his personal amusement — with the exception of “Ocean’s Twelve” and “Thirteen,” in which he sneered his way through his contractual obligations. ”The Informant!,” then, represents a refreshing and at this point unexpected return to form. His technical skills never diminished — “The Informant!” is beautifully framed, lighted and edited. But for the first time in a long time, Soderbergh gets you emotionally involved and — here’s a shock — laughing. The movie tells the more or less true story of Mark Whitacre, an executive at agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland who brings passion and eccentricity to his self-appointed role as a corporate snitch. Matt Damon plays Whitacre, and it’s the most fully realized performance of his career. Damon tends to come across as intelligent, pleasant and, frankly, a bit dull. But he disappears inside Whitacre, an inspired comic creation who’s equal parts nerdy autodictact, shrewd manipulator and outrageous fabulist. The crackerjack screenplay by Scott Z. Burns illustrates Whitacre’s restless mind through uproarious voice-overs. Apropos of nothing, he’ll start pontificating on subjects like the capacity for abstract thought in polar bears. He’s so colorful, the rest of the actors smartly don’t try to compete — they react to Damon’s antics with straight-faced drollery. “The Informant!” turns abstruse corporate misdeeds into a rollicking good time.

Make sure to double-check your ticket at your next trip to the multiplex. I wouldn’t want anyone planning to see the boffo aliens-on-Earth allegory “District 9” to wander into the computer-animated, post-apocalyptic fantasy “9” instead. Both offer intriguing and disturbing visions of a world plunged into bloody chaos as a result of humanity’s arrogance. But “District 9” has a compelling story and thematic complexity, while “9” has cool images and little else. It plays like a Cliffs Notes version of itself, which is odd given that it’s a feature-length expansion of an 11-minute short. Director Shane Acker asks his audience to take a lot on faith. The movie takes place in an alternate reality in which a man-versus-machine apocalypse wiped out life on Earth sometime in the pre-digital age, and Acker encourages you to empathize with a band of stitched-up robotic dolls who exhibit human emotion. But he leaves their origin so murky that even they don’t know why they behave as they do. Worse, their adventures, and their personalities, rarely escape cliche. They embark on rescue missions; they defy authority; they overcome doubt and fear. And it all rings hollow. But it’s certainly great to look at. The dolls repair and accessorize themselves ingeniously, and their ragtag appearances match their character traits. Their much-larger adversaries are fearsome mechanized medleys that slither and stab and grab and kill anything that moves. “9” announces Acker as a confident filmmaker with an inventive, nightmarish visual style. Maybe one day he’ll add storytelling to his skill set.

Mike Judge is a serious man who makes lighthearted animated TV shows and occasionally dabbles in silly live-action movies. His film career appeared promising 10 years ago, with the release of “Office Space,” his deservedly beloved feature debut. But if you’re wondering why it took Judge so long to get another movie into theaters, “Extract” provides the answer: He has no ideas. Or, at the very least, what ideas he has don’t translate into engaging cinema. Judge is a perceptive satirist and a merciless chronicler of American stupidity. He understands suburbia: the office parks, the chain restaurants, the gated communities and the flimsy structures that pass for affordable housing. But in “Office Space,” he found the humanity in that soul-crushing milieu; in “Extract” he never does, despite his return to a workplace setting. This time it’s a small factory that makes flavored extracts, the brainchild of a harried nebbish played with a profound lack of conviction by Jason Bateman. The movie is awkward and talky, entirely dependent on dialogue to propel its meager story. When Judge cuts out a scene, there’s no hiding it; characters refer to the missing bits in conversation. His direction is so stilted that even a consummate pro like J.K. Simmons looks uncomfortable on screen. Mila Kunis, a rising star after her sparkling turn in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” is utterly wasted in the role of a precocious grifter. Judge hasn’t entirely lost his gift for amusing banter. But to call “Extract” a sitcom stretched out to feature length would be an insult to most sitcoms.