Idiocracy (2006)

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

Director:

Mike Judge

Writers:

Mike Judge (story), Mike Judge (screenplay),

Stars:

Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Luke Wilson	...	Joe Bauers
Maya Rudolph	...	Rita
Dax Shepard	...	Frito
Terry Crews	...	President Camacho (as Terry Alan Crews)
Anthony 'Citric' Campos	...	Secretary of Defense
David Herman	...	Secretary of State
Sonny Castillo	...	Prosecutor
Kevin McAfee	...	Bailiff (as Kevin S. McAfee)
Robert Musgrave	...	Sgt. Keller
Michael McCafferty	...	Officer Collins (as Mike McCafferty)
Christopher Ryan	...	Hospital Technician (as Ryan Melton)
Justin Long	...	Doctor
Heath Jones	...	Cop #1
Eli Muñoz	...	Horny Guy
Patrick Fischler	...	Yuppie Husband

Storyline

The purpose of the program set up by the Pentagon, called the "Human Hibernation Project," is designed so that the military can save their best men for when they're needed most. According to the officers heading the project, too many times the talents and expensive training of the best pilots and soldiers go to waste during times of peace. So they enlist Bauers (Wilson), the most under-achieving average guy they've got, to be the test subject for the initial hibernation experiment. Also participating in the top-secret program is Rita (Rudolph), a prostitute who agreed to take part in exchange for dropping some criminal charges against her, among other things. Of course, the experiment, which was to last only a year, goes under due to the arrest of Officer Collins, who is busted for heading a prostitution ring. Seeing as though he was in charge of the experiment, one of the only ones who knew of its existence, and "due to a lot of top-secret red tape... and the massive scandals and ...

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Plot Keywords:

hibernation | experiment | future | army | arrest | 

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Taglines:

In the future, intelligence is extinct.

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and sex-related humor

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 January 2007 (Germany)

Also Known As:

3001

Filming Locations:

Austin Convention Center - 500 E. Cesar Chavez Street, Austin, Texas, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$177,559 (USA) (1 September 2006)

Gross:

$438,653 (USA) (29 September 2006)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Ternion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby DTS (as dts)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although the marketing campaign for this film went unnoticed, 20th Century Fox decided to actually license out the "Brawndo" drink for sale. The drink itself has gained a cult following, though it is no longer available for purchase at www.brawndo.com.

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Goofs

During Monday Night Rehabilitation, the "assdozer" tries to drive through the tunnel, but is too big. When it plows into the wall, a man is at the entrance of the tunnel. When the wall collapses, a second man appears at the bottom next to the first man. The first man runs out of the way, but the second man is crushed underneath the debris.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How ...

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Crazy Credits

A note near the end of the credits says "This film was also cut entirely on a computer".

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Connections

References WWE Smackdown! (1999)

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Soundtracks

"Whiskey and Rye"
Written by Steve Byrd
Courtesy of Associated Production Music, LLC

User Reviews

Satire on exactly what the studio did to it

A lot of things in this futuristic satire are more theoretically funny than actually funny (though it does have some laugh-out-loud moments) but a lot of that is because it seems to have been cut by the studio to better appeal to exactly the idiots it's mocking. Many situations aren't allowed to develop, there's obvious overdubbing of expository material, and worst of all a narrator explains EVERYTHING (most of which needs no explanation), probably because some preview audience didn't understand what was going on. In other words, a movie about dumbing down has been... you guessed it.

One hopes that a longer, better version of this comedy will eventually surface on DVD, and it will become the cult fave it deserves to be, but even in this mutilated and somewhat comic- spirit-diminished form it's one of the more memorable films of the year-- a screech of disgust against our culture and all the ways it's become trashified, stupidified and uglified in the name of appealing to the yahoos. I watched it right after Land of the Dead, George Romero's latest milking of the single idea that consumers = zombies, which is basically the same point Judge is making; yet where Romero's counterculture viewpoint (now zombies = underclass that needs to revolt against the rich) seems hopelessly out of date, Judge's take is fresh, dead-on and far more disturbing. Just listen to the yahoos in your movie audience whooping it up for President Camacho's State of the Union just like their counterparts on screen, and you'll know that we're all doomed.