Idiocracy (2006)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Mike Judge

Writers (WGA):

Mike Judge (story)
Mike Judge (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

25 January 2007 (Germany)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The Future Is A No Brainer

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Hibernation | Experiment | Army | Soldier | Arrest

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

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
Justin Long	...	Doctor
Heath Jones	...	Cop #1
Eli Muñoz	...	Horny Guy
Patrick Fischler	...	Yuppie Husband

Also Known As:

3001 (USA) (working title)
Untitled Mike Judge Comedy (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and sex-related humor.

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:MA | Finland:K-13 | Germany:12 | USA:R (certificate #41505) | Argentina:13 | Italy:T | New Zealand:R13 | Netherlands:12 | South Korea:15 | Portugal:M/12

Filming Locations:

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

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The premises of this movie - someone waking up several hundred years in the future and finding that people have gotten much stupider due to evolutionary pressure - was previously used in "The Marching Morons", a short story written in 1951 by C. M. Kornbluth.

Goofs:

Factual errors: During the scene in which the narrator states that the average IQ of mankind dropped drastically over time, they did not take into account that the average IQ of mankind is always 100, with test results adjusted to keep 100 as the center value. The average IQ graph should have been a flat line staying at 100 points.

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...

Movie Connections:

References American Pimp (1999)

Soundtrack:

Romantic Pieces, No. 1

Just how stupid does this movie have to be for people to get the point?

Let me start by saying that if you're expecting subtle humour, you're in the wrong theatre. It's low-brow and heavy-hitting. But he's not out to tickle your funny bone. He's got the sledgehammer out and he's drawn a bead on the side of your head. But fear not. As movies go, this is a fairly gentle education. Oh, also, heavy on the swearing, but once again, Mike Judge, not Fred Rogers.

Was this movie called 'intelliocracy'? F*** no. The gem, the essence that is Mike Judge is that he has the ability to make people laugh at themselves. Beavis and Butthead was most popular with teen-aged boys, the very people at which it incessantly poked fun.

With that in mind, I don't think the humour in this movie is aimed at the super intelligent. Maybe you are all too smart to get it. But he's not aiming at you. He's aiming at your average Joe. And he's got a message: get your act together and for god's sake, study botany! It is a little disjointed and the narrator gets to be a little irritating after a while, but once again, this movie is meant for people who need a lot of narration ;-) It's funny. It has a message that it wants to make sure that we all understand.

I question the casting of Luke Wilson in the role of a man with a 100 IQ. Sometimes, he's not able to play down (what's he got, like, a 104?) to the level of his character. Slightly forced at times.

Kudos on Dax Shepard in this one. I remember seeing him in Zathura and thinking, "This guys looks like an idiot." In this movie, he makes a great idiot. Maybe I'm psychic.

It took a while to warm up to Maya Rudolph, but I gave her a little leeway. After all, she did have to play straight man to an entire planet. But once she got a little screen time, she made a solid contribution.

Terry Crews played the same psychotic, aggressive character he's played many times before, but he makes a first-rate president none the less.

Another bonus is that the place was practically empty. Counting my girlfriend and I, there were literally six people in the theatre. We could've had a barbecue pit and a mariachi band. So, no annoying people talking, as appears to be the norm in the 'talking-to-the-tv' age.

All in all, a good premise and a competent delivery, given the intended goal. Lots of laughs sprinkled throughout.

What made this movie scary was the fact that when we walked out of the theatre, it was sort of like the movie was still playing. We saw a lot of idiocy in the people immediately around us, maybe made more apparent by the dose we got in the theatre....

They're all pods, all of them!