Idiocracy

Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction

Luke Wilson	Pvt. Joe Bowers
Maya Rudolph	Rita
Dax Shepard	Frito
Tom Beaver	Dan Fisk
Anthony 'Citric' Campos	Secretary of Defense
David Herman	Secretary of State
Sonny Castillo	Prosecutor
Kevin McAfee	Bailiff
Robert Musgrave	Sgt. Keller
Ryan Melton	Hospital Technician
Justin Long	Doctor

Director	Mike Judge
Producer	Mike Judge; Elysa Koplovitz
Writer	Mike Judge

Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) is frozen along with a prostitute named Rita (Maya Rudolph) for a test program being run by the Pentagon. The experiment was only supposed to last one year, but after the base shuts down Joe and Rita are forgotten, only to wake up 500 years in the future. Over the years, the world has become incredibly dumb, as stupid people reproduced at an alarming rate. All of a sudden, this average Joe is now the smartest man alive! Now Joe must navigate a frightening world where he is outcasted and misunderstood because of how intelligent he is. Can he manage to survive long enough to find a way back to his present day?

Given that Office Space is a bona fide cult classic, it comes as some surprise that Mike Judge's follow-up wasn't more heavily promoted. Granted, this live-action comedy is a darker, more pointed proposition, but it's unfortunate that few theater patrons got the opportunity to, well, judge for themselves. In Idiocracy, the King of the Hill creator visualizes what would happen if Devo's proposition--that mankind is in the process of devolution--came to pass. The catalyst: the overeducated start having fewer children while the undereducated have more. Enter Joe (Luke Wilson), a military librarian with no family and even less ambition. The Pentagon chooses him for a top-secret hibernation project due to his extreme "average-ness." They select Rita (SNL's Maya Rudolph), a prostitute, for the same reason. When the experiment goes haywire, the two emerge 500 years later--rather than one. Now it's 2505 and they're the brightest people in the over-polluted land. Everyone else is, basically, Beavis and Butt-head. Yes, the satire couldn't be less subtle, but the premise gives Judge license to make as much fun of junk food pop culture as dystopian classics like 1984 and Planet of the Apes. Wilson wisely plays it straight, even if the actors who surround him sometimes succumb to excess. And the effects may be cheesy, but that just adds to the fun. Idiocracy features former footballer Terry Crews (Everybody Hates Chris) as President Camacho and Dax Shepard (Punk'd) as Joe's futuristic friend Frito. --Kathleen C. Fennessy