Review – Idiocracy

I recall several occasions when I’ve found myself sitting through a commencement exercise among some of the less-gifted students whose papers I’d graded, listening to a speaker describe the kids as “our future,” and thinking “Wow, I hope not.” In this movie, Mike Judge dares to ask that most unpleasant of questions: “What if the future really is run by idiots?” His answer is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in ages. Luke Wilson (who isn’t my favorite actor but here manages not to offend) stars as an average Joe accidentally frozen for five hundred years. Our hero awakens to find himself in an entire world of … well, let’s be polite and say “people with few critical thinking skills.” In a country so moron-ized by lowest-common-denominator pop culture that nobody realizes plants die when watered with Gatorade, even a slacker from the 21st century instantly rises to national prominence. The humor is strictly absurd, but that’s okay. Several of the sight gags made me laugh so hard my head hurt. I had a qualm or two about some of the eugenic overtones, but the nature of the production made it impossible for me to take even that part seriously enough to get upset about it. The only down side, then, is that after you see this, every stupid thing you see on TV or in real life (and of course such occasions abound) takes on an oddly apocalyptic feel. Buy the disc