Review: Idiocracy

JoBlo note: As per my
“JoBlo blurb of the day” above, it truly appears as though
FOX is intentionally “dumping” Mike Judge’s latest film
entitled IDIOCRACY despite pretty decent word of mouth from those
who have seen it already. The film has no official website, no
official poster, only 2 pictures from the film on the Net (see them
below) and isn’t even featured anywhere on Fox’s official press
site. A little odd, no? Anyway, our man Johnny Moreno managed to
catch the flick last week and here’s what he thought about it. For
those who don’t remember, FOX pulled this same shit with Judge’s
OFFICE SPACE a few years ago, but that film ultimately gained cult
status on DVD.

After
two years in “how will we market this” hell, Mike Judge’s
IDIOCRACY
finally hit theatres September 1st, albeit very select theatres.
According to BoxOfficeMojo, the movie’s currently playing
in 130 theatres across the country.
Doesn’t exactly scream, “confidence in the product.”

Plot:
For the uninitiated, Joe (Luke Wilson

), a private in the Armed Forces is selected to become the guinea
pig for the government’s new “hibernation program”.
Designed to incapacitate your ass, Han Solo-style, the
government’s purpose is to take the top brass, elite soldiers and
“freeze” them for a time when their services will be most
useful. Joe is not one of
these elite soldiers. Along
for the ride is Rita (Maya Rudolph), a hooker with sass (is there
any other kind?) and like Joe, two eggs short of a full carton.
After being “forgotten” about for 1000 years, Joe and
Rita finally awake out of their comas to find the people of the
world existing on pretty much caveman instinct and tubs of icing.

What
follows are an array of dick and fart jokes, visual gags, slams on
advertising and the judicial
system and a love story you can see coming a mile away but did I
care? Nope.
I totally dug it. The
movie could have done without the love story, but it works in this
setting, even balancing the hilarious “family tree” montage in
the beginning of the flick which shows how the world has become
overpopulated with dumb shits. The
people watch 15 shows at once, like in “Back to the Future
2”. One show called,
“Own my Ballz,” consists of a poor dude getting his goolies
owned in various, creative ways. Imagine
seeing Denzel Washington on the street, saying, “I love your
work!” then kicking him square in his John Qs.
I know, hilarious, right? Then
you realize you’re watching a bunch of retards on the screen,
watching people getting kicked in the nuts like it was the greatest
thing in the world. Then you
start to think, “is this where we’re headed?” Without getting
overly dramatic about it, questions are posed, debates arise, bowls
are roasted.

Luke
Wilson, luckily, doesn’t have the stigma of his blonder brethren,
who is basically “Owen”, nowadays.
Luke plays Joe as just what the name implies: the average,
every day…er…joe blow (that was an accident, I swear).
Even when we briefly see him in the military at the start of
the film, it’s understood that when Joe is given the choice of
“Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way”, Joe will get the
hell out of the way. And
he’s okay with that.

SNL’s
Maya Rudolph lends pretty much nothing to the role, other than a
great mugshot. The role is
pretty transparent, easy to do without.
It almost feels like it was added in later on to give it the
“love interest” angle. Punk’d’s
Dax Shepard plays Frito, an attorney that Joe literally crashes in
on. Other highlight’s
include Justin Long as a doctor, the wonderfully boobalicious Sara
Rue, the classic courtroom scene with Stephen Root as Judge Hank
“the Hangman” BMW, Terry Crews as President Camacho and Michael
Bolton from OFFICE SPACE as one of his cabinet members.
Not to mention the love of a Gatorade like drink that spouts
from water faucets (It’s got Electrolytes!).

It’s
hard to see why FOX would sit on this for two years, though after
watching it, I can see that it’s a film that’s not exactly a
marketing coordinator’s dream. It’s
a straight up satire on today’s world that pulls no punches when
it comes to where we could be heading (in an exaggerated fashion of
course), and the fact that it was completed and ready to go two
years ago is scary to me when dealing with the movie’s theme of
retardation.

It’s
the perfect flick for this moment in time.
Or was that two years ago? I
hate time travel. Good satire
is sometimes ugly, as it is now, and even if it doesn’t make
someone in marketing’s job easier, Mike Judge, who’s proven his
relevance, is a hand someone should be more than willing to gamble
on.

—
By Johnny
Moreno