Idiocracy (2006): B-

Neither the train wreck Twentieth-Century Fox believed it to be when the studio unceremoniously dumped it onto DVD after a miniscule theatrical release, nor the disrespected and misunderstood masterpiece many had hoped, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy instead turns out to be simply an intermittently amusing – and sometimes lazy – satire that plays like a so-so episode of Futurama. Commissioned to be test subjects in a government hibernation program that’ll last one year, über-average soldier Joe (Luke Wilson) and hooker Rita (Maya Rudolph) instead wake up 500 years in the future to find that, thanks to dumb people’s more vigorous breeding habits, the world has become entirely populated by Butthead-grade morons. Now the smartest person on Earth, Joe embarks on a series of misadventures while attempting to return to present-day 2005, along the way discovering that sports drinks have replaced water as the planetary drink of choice, entertainment has devolved into shows like “Ow, My Balls!”, and Starbucks is the nation’s premiere hand-job retailer. It’s a scenario intended to playfully eviscerate our passive acceptance of our current corporatized infotainment culture, with the film’s cheap production design and CG effects cannily mirroring the story’s crass setting (miles-wide Costco outlets, mountains of trash, former porn stars and wrestlers as president). Yet Judge’s general disinterest in structured narrative often leads to sloppiness, so that the film undercuts its own central critique by focusing too heavily on slapdash gags and not enough on the ways Big Box conglomerates and collective apathy affect (in this case, for the worst) the global population. Junk like Code Name: The Cleaner and Man of the Year may not be a far cry from Ass, the cinematic blockbuster (featuring nothing but a static shot of a naked behind) to which Idiocracy’s citizenry flock. But at least for now, many of us moviegoers still expect more than average scatological humor and slight political/cultural commentary from the guy who made Office Space.

Comments

[rob]

As much as I enjoyed parts of the film (I think I even gave it the same rating), I can understand - sadly - why it was shelved for so long. More of a reflection on the general state of mainstream movies than FOX in general (although they're certainly bastards as well); I imagine the movie would have found its audience were art houses as commonplace as the multiplex.

[Joseph Young]

I'm pretty sure that if the movie had been given any sort of publicity whatsoever (I didn't see a single trailer for it, though plenty for the company's John Tucker Must Die) and properly advertised, it would have been performed fine. I guess I haven't seen the film (yet) but from what I can tell there doesn't seem to be anything about the film that would make traditional audiences averse to it.

[Nick]

I'm sure Idiocracy would have done fine at the b.o., if only because - thanks to Office Space - Judge has a built-in audience that would have attended regardless of less-than-stellar reviews. Why Fox thought it was worth suppressing is beyond me given all the crap that studios release on a weekly basis - and as those of us who go to not-screened-for-critics films know all to well, that's A LOT of crap (right, Rob?).

Still, I wish I could strongly get behind Idiocracy as a great film in its own right. Unfortunately, it's just too genial and flimsy to be anything more than a mildly amusing diversion - albeit one that I'd prefer to watch over quite a bit of the stuff that's coming out in January and February...

[rob]

In trying to assume the mindset of the average multiplex peon (god that reads pretentious, but really...), I imagined that "Idiocracy" would have disappointed many simply because of its low, low budget look and humor that goes against the grain of traditional stupidity. Many would be pleasantly entertained I'm sure (I did like the film, to a point), but having seen movies such as "Open Water", "Collateral" and "Miami Vice" with audiences who openly complained about "something being wrong with the film", my experience tells me to be less optimistic.