Idiocracy

I wasn't expecting anything brilliant when I watched Idiocracy, but I was hoping for something at least a little clever and interesting. The plot gave me some hope; a story about the future, time travel, and the decay of society sounds like a promising sci-fi premise, which I almost always enjoy. Add on top of it that an average Joe of present-day is, in the future, the most intelligent man on earth and there are comedic opportunities aplenty. Not to mention, it’s directed by Mike Judge, a man who brought King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead, and Office Space into the world. The man knows his comedy.
Unfortunately, Idiocracy never lives up to its potential. There is so much that goes wrong here that it is hard to put it into words. The word “disappointing” fits, so I'll use that.

Where Idiocracy really disappoints is in the style of comedy. Fart jokes and stupid sexual innuendo abound in this movie, along with plenty of dirty words and dumb situations. I think I understand what Mike Judge was shooting for here; that the future is stupid. The tricky part is the message he’s trying to convey; that this is where we are headed as a society and if you laugh at this stuff you are no better than the stupid people of the future. Now, I realize that this is looking really deep into this seemingly simple movie, but I do think this is what Judge was doing. So, in the “smart” people’s minds there will be two kinds of viewers of this movie; those who get it (and love the social statement) and those who don’t and are stupid for enjoying it for the fart jokes.
Well, the smart people would be wrong. I’ve got a third opinion; that the movie stinks. I understand the social statement, but it doesn’t matter. The plot is simple and too drawn out just to show how stupid people are in the future. As the viewer, you see society is dumbed-down immediately after Joe’s time-travel. We don’t need to see how stupid they are for an hour, we know. The problem is that if the situations were funnier, it would be enjoyable. For example, there is one scene at a hospital where Joe goes to find out if he has any side effects from the time-travel. This segment is hilarious and easily the best part of the movie, it has awkward situations with the stupid people, but it still manages to be funny.

The movie isn’t all bad. Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph are fine as comedic actors (although Dax Shepard is not) and some of the visuals in the movie are good, such as the Costco and Carl’s Jr. scenes.
In the end, this movie can’t live up to a TV series with a similar premise: Futurama. That may not be a fair comparison, but I’m making it. Both have the frozen time-travel going for them, the simple-minded hero, the love interest, and trying to understand the future. It’s just that one of them does it a whole lot better.
5/10