You probably haven’t heard of Mike Judge’s new movie, Idiocracy. The director of the cult classic Office Space received no help from 20th Century Fox in promoting this movie. It doesn’t even have a trailer or movie poster associated with it and was released quietly to a few select theaters a few weeks back.
From the narrator’s opening lines it was hysterics, with barely time to catch your breath throughout the whole film.
In the movie, an average, likable military worker named Joe finds himself part of a military experiment that goes awry, freezing him for 500 years when the project is shut down and he is forgotten. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a culture he is unprepared for and discovers he is now the smartest man on the planet.
In this futuristic world, evolution has backfired, with the dumb masses reproducing at alarming rates, while the intelligent world puts having children on hold to wait for their careers.
By the time Joe wakes up, the world is nothing more than a huge landfill and the people wear disposable clothing peppered with hundreds of corporate logos.
Charged with solving their dust bowl and crop problem, Joe finds the simple solution is to stop watering the crops with Brawndo (a sports drink) a problem, since the Brawndo company has bought the FDA and FCC and decided water should only be used in toilet bowls.
The movies jokes are on all levels, from the Chicago-sized Costco of the future to the Secretary of Energy who won a contest to get the job. Some things are more subtle than others, and even after the movie, one can continue to realize the hilarity of certain events that had not been noticed during the film.
The only complaint is that it ended too soon. There must be reels full of material sitting on a cutting room floor somewhere, and it’s a shame.
Obviously a satire, the movie begs us not to allow the corporate conglomerates to continue to influence our world, and reminds us that if we do not start putting our careers on hold for children, the world is headed in a scary direction.
Imagine Jerry Springer on a global scale. Now, start thinking of names for your future kids and open a savings fund for their education. In the meantime, go see Idiocracy. We might still have time to prevent it from becoming our society.