When it comes to corporate entities, there is a whole menu of subjects that filmmakers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan (from whose book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is adapted) could have chosen. Market manipulation, such as Enron practiced during California's apparently jerry-rigged 2001 energy crisis; the cozy relationships between governments and the businesses those governments are supposed to regulate; the disparities between executive pay (with their luxurious perks) and the golden parachutes of workers facing layoffs; reduced benefits; and bankrupt pension funds are but some examples. The filmmakers are less interested in these instances of corporate greed than they are in corrosive policies that place profit before social good, justice, or even the survival of the planet.

With jaunty intertitles, such as "Triumph of the Shill" and "Unsettling Accounts," film clips, and talking heads that include everyone from gadflies Noam Chomsky and filmmaker Michael Moore to corporate heads, The Corporation limns the tale of an entity that began modestly enough during the 19th century, as firms were granted what were supposed to be temporary charters for building things like railroads and bridges. Over the years, though, the notion of what a corporation is has evolved, as the companies themselves have metastasized to the point where they pervade many aspects of everyday life. In too many instances, it is a record of avarice, hubris, and malfeasance that is bound to give all but the biggest globalization cheerleaders pause. There are business practices that exploit Third World labor, market to strategies designed to transform children into loyal and unquestioning consumers and a privatization scheme that had the Bechtel Corporation owning all the water—including rainwater—in Bolivia. It is not a pretty picture.

The film does not completely demonize corporate heads. There is one out-and-out white knight represented in Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world's largest carpet manufacturer. He argues that it is possible for corporations to evolve into good world citizens and holds up his own company's strive toward more ecologically sound manufacturing as an example. But Anderson's is just one voice and the cumulative effect of the film's stories is chilling—stories such as those that detail IBM's involvement with Nazi Germany, track the race to patent the very genes that make up human life, and describe Monsanto's successful effort to pressure another corporate entity, Fox News, into killing an unfavorable story.

At the outset of the film, someone characterizes corporations as "monsters trying to devour as much profit as possible at anyone's expense." After wading through nearly 2 ½ hours of examples of corporate actions, the description seems apt, but also insulting to monsters. Would Godzilla or Frankenstein's creature really behave that dishonorably?