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Mike Judge
September 1, 2009
What do you call a movie with a 2.4 million dollar budget, no promotion, and showings limited to six cities worldwide? “Idiocracy”, a feel-bad comedy that much like Mike Judge’s last film “Office Space”, takes another look into America’s workplace concluding that collectively, America is getting dumber. But make no mistake, “Idiocracy” does not have the same cult impact as “Office Space”, because if it had America would have failed.
The movie kicks off with an intelligent couple discussing why they won’t be having kids, explaining that with the way the market is, it’s not practical. The movie then cuts to a less intelligent couple who seem to be breeding like rabbits, “I thought youse was on the pill or some shit.” The movie explains that without any natural predators, those who reproduced the most were rewarded while the population of smarter beings thinned out. The conspiracy doesn’t end there.
Now the movie shifts to Joe (Luke Wilson), statistically the most average male in all of the armed forces. He is selected along with Rita (Maya Rudolph), to be tested on in a military-guided experiment focused on preserving the human body. Joe is drugged expecting to wake up a year later but instead emerges from the casket in the year 2505, something went wrong. After walking around for a bit Joe realizes the world hasn’t advanced like everyone hoped 500 years ago. Even the crops cease to exist because people have been too stupid to water them with anything but Brawndo, a drink heavy in electrolytes.
CGI has seen a lot better days in other movies, but the low budget effects might be a plus. If I traveled to a future where IQ topped out in the single digits, I too would imagine a lesser cinematic experience. Although in “Idiocracy”, “Ass” won an Oscar for best screen play, a movie that features a pair of buttocks that occasionally passes gas, so I guess CGI is done away with in the future.
The movie isn’t perfect, and it certainly didn’t need to be 84 minutes long. The opening scene was enough to get the point across for many: dumb people shouldn’t breed. This of course was not the goal for Mike Judge when producing the movie, instead he wanted to tell American’s that we can’t expect others to solve our problems. If any part of the movie alarms you or makes you want to slit your wrists, which I hope it did, then do something about it. But the least you can do is out breed those you hate most.
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