In 2005, Corporal Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), a US Army librarian graphed as the Army's "most average" soldier, and Rita (Maya Rudolph), a prostitute terrified of her pimp, U-p-g-r-a-y-e-d-d (pronounced: upgrade, two D's for "a double-dose of this pimping"), are guinea pigs in a secret, year-long, military hibernation project. They are sealed in their hibernation chambers, to be awakened a year later, but the experiment is forgotten when the officer in charge, Lieutenant Colonel Collins (Michael McCafferty), is arrested for having started his own prostitution ring under the tutelage of Upgrayedd. The military base is demolished, and a fast food store built on the site.
They re-emerge in the year 2505 when rubbish mountain avalanches uncover their hibernation pods. The dystopian future is one in which stupid people have out-bred the intelligent. The most popular TV programme is 'Ow! My Balls!' in which a man is repeatedly whacked in the genitals, the Oscar winning film is called 'Ass' and has no story, just film of someone's nether regions.
I just watched this on Film4 but I didn't see any reviews of it here, except a comment by JD in another thread. He didn't much care for it, and I suspect he is not alone in that:
...Idiocracy (which is a blatant -- and awful -- ripoff of C. M. Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons") continues to be put out there in the name of the genre. Good lord, at least the 1950s sf films didn't claim anything high for themselves; they were popcorn films from the beginning... and still some of them attained greater heights of genuine resonance than the nonsense that's put out there since at least the late 1970s in the genre...
I do see JD's point of view, but in it's defence, I don't think
Idiocracy has made any high claims, and I believe it does add more to the story idea. The cultural elite has now become extinct, everyone is now stupid, the decaying society is kept going by old machines, and the government is actually run on behalf of a few mega-corporations. However, the story-line doesn't really have enough to fill the whole film.
I'm still more inclined to agree with this reviewer from Film4/reviews:
Abandoned without previews or marketing in the US and sent straight to DVD in the UK, Idiocracy has been treated as someone with fingerless mittens would handle raw sewage.
Incredibly, this is the second time writer-director Mike Judge has been dumped this way. In 1999, despite his track record with 'Beavis And Butt-Head' Judge's debut feature Office Space was similarly ditched. Deservedly, it went on to become a word-of-mouth cult hit and Judge must hope the same fate awaits Idiocracy.
Given that the film sends up what happens when the morons take over, and the fact that it was released in the month that major studios see fit to champion dross like Norbit, it's tempting to imagine that Judge hasn't made a futuristic satire at all, but a slice-of-life docudrama.
Those who cast Idiocracy aside would argue - correctly - that it's blunt, crass, wildly uneven and struggles to fill its 84 minutes. What this overlooks is that it's also stuffed with inspired sight gags, one-liners and more genuine comic insight than the collected works of Adam Sandler and Martin Lawrence combined. Like Office Space, it's actually about something, namely the dumbing down of modern life.
It is very crude and very crass, and I guess that is what you might expect from the creator of
Beavis and Butt-Head but as a satire there were some pieces that were spot on target, and some very funny pieces - the idea that, even at the end, the most intelligent man in the world still thought the prostitute was an artist. Considering some of the recent poor films made, it did not deserve to go straight to DVD in the UK. I would recommend seeing it before dismissing it.
There was some genuine creativity here, and I'd rather this was being made than the alternative, as Film4 put it:
Next up: the Wayans brothers get funding for their big-screen version of 'Ow! My Balls!'
As for ripping-off earlier work, as far as I am aware
The Marching Morons was not filmed (though that is most likely JD's gripe!) However, one of my favourite films, Woody Allen's
Sleeper uses the exact same 'suspended animation by botched surgery' idea from the book, which instead becomes an Army experiment in
Idiocracy. And, a film that does make high claims for itself, Disney's
Wall-E does blatantly rip-off
Idiocracy both in the stupid people and the rubbish piles.
