DVD Review: Idiocracy

One of my favorite movies of all time is Office Space from Mike Judge. I’ve never worked in an office myself, but the quotidian farce is perfect for any work place, especially any that is as hated as the office. The man behind such genius comedy was in my mind a God for having crafted it. Overlooking King of the Hill, which I never fully supported, or his first work in Beavis and Butthead, something that I watched but was hard pressed to find the same level of comedy in, I always thought Judge should make a new film, something as scathing and witty as Office Space was and still is.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Office Spacefrom Mike Judge. I’ve never worked in an office myself, but the quotidian farceis perfect for any work place, especially any that is as hated as the office.The man behind such genius comedy was in my mind a God for having crafted it.Overlooking King of the Hill, which I never fully supported, or his first workin Beavis and Butthead, something that I watched but was hard pressed to findthe same level of comedy in, I always thought Judge should make a new film,something as scathing and witty as Office Space was and still is.

It’s been 7years, but he finally did and I was incredibly excited by the prospect. Theconcept is simple and if it wasn’t his work, I would have written it off aschildish slush from the start. But in his hands I thought that Idiocracy stooda chance of being something damn funny.

The premise is simple, very simple in fact. Fittinglysimple. An average Joe (quite literally in fact) played by Luke Wilson workingas an Army Librarian is tapped for an experiment in human hibernation alongwith a prostitute played indelibly by Maya Rudolph, whose work on SNL has yetto vindicate her appearance in actual film. Because of the predictableincompetence of the Army, our hibernatees are left in their pods for 500 years,to wake up and find that the world has changed into a haven for stupidity,where natural selection has reversed and stupidity is rewarded evolutionarilydue to mass breeding by the uneducated.

The film was released in September but somehow found its wayto the blacklist and received a very limited release with no advertising. Now,with the DVD release the studio has finally decided to put some money into theadvertising , which you may have noticed in a recent onslaught of commercialsadvertising its release.

The film itself, while probably not deserving of such asubstantial snub, also isn’t anything special. As much as I wanted to fall inlove with it, I could not simply because it was not as great as it could havebeen.  The beginning of the film isprobably its strongest part, careening through a terse, hilarious overview ofwhat destroyed the human race. The introduction to the future America isequally as funny, showing how dumb our world can get when things like proper speechand sexual control are forgotten. It’s a biting satire that rips into theculture of laziness and stupidity that America has created and is in theprocess of slow and steady decline into.

However, after a while the film finds itself miring intothat territory itself, pandering to its own childish jokes and poorlyconstructed plot. The film is quick and the exposition lengthy, leaving arelatively short time for the actual plot to unfold and while it does, Judgejumps too quickly between what in his head were surely great sketches. Some ofthem are, but some equally overreach. The transformation of Joe into a worldpower is done with almost no preposition, though his interaction with theIdiocracy itself is at times quite funny. The frustration the viewer feels attheir stupidity is decently moderated with the pace of the film, but at thesame time that pace forces a weak plot to its endpoint all the quicker.

The concept of Idiocracy is incredibly simple and because ofthis Judge is left with as much space as he wants to work. Luke Wilson is greatfor the role, deadpanning his way through the idiocy that surrounds him. MayaRudolph however is a drag on the entire plot, an unnecessary cliché detractingfrom every scene she’s in, while Dax Shepard manages the role of bumbling idiotas well as only he can. When Judge’s ideas are at the reins the film movesalong smoothly, inducing laughs and even making the viewer think a little bit.Unfortunately, when he passes those reins over to the characters and theirridiculous story, the sludge comes up around the rudders and you begin towonder how much the film is satirizing this nation’s stupidity when it beginsto pander to it on the same level.

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