idiocracyfoodpyramid[1]Idiocracy — Kevin Smith

Rating:  2.5/5

OK, this wasn’t a great movie.  In many respects, it wasn’t even a good movie.  Mike Judge’s parody of the degeneration of mankind isn’t really in the same league as his classic Office Space, but it does have funny moments.

The premise, clearly stated in a hilarious five-minute clip at the start of the movie that is easily the best part of the whole film, is that evolution no longer favors the positive qualities of mankind, but simply rewards those who reproduce more.  After seeing “Clevon” and “Clevon, Jr.” you’ll understand where he’s going pretty quickly.

Luke Wilson plays Joe Bauers, a completely average soldier tapped as an experimental subject for a human hibernation project.  After a mishap, he ends up 500 years in the future, after humanity has become a species of complete idiots.  Joe is now the smartest man in the world, and the President of the United States, Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (an arena-fighting champion / porn star) taps him to solve all the country’s problems, promising his constituents that he’ll solve them all in a week.

The acting is hard to judge in this movie; everyone is basically playing idiots, which doesn’t make it easy to gauge their skills.  Luke Wilson does do a very good job of playing an unexceptional Everyman convincingly, which seems like it would be fairly hard to do.

There’s only so much riffing on the shallowness of popular culture that you can absorb before it all starts sounding the same.  Several of the ongoing gags reference existing brands like Fuddruckers, Starbucks, Carl’s Jr., etc., while others invent new brands — ‘Flaturin’, ‘Tarrleyton’ cigarettes, and the ubiquitous ‘Brawndo — the Thirst Mutilator’.  Many of these gags are funny, but only the first couple of times.

The plot is OK, as far as it goes.  It wasn’t particularly believable, but it didn’t seem like it was really intended to be realistic.  In the end, the movie was a vehicle for an extended look at the relationship between stupidity and popular culture, and succeeded modestly on that level.  I’d recommend seeing this if you are a Mike Judge fan or enjoy mindless comedies — otherwise, it probably isn’t worth the time.