I think I understand what's going on here: a film aficionado is supposed to watch "Idiocracy" and laugh at how stupid everyone else is for not watching independent films, right? Or, at the very least, films that actually have something to say about something. Well, maybe it is a little self-gratifying to now and again think of one's self as intelligent and everybody else as not being up to your own standard, but, let's say you were in the position Luke Wilson's protagonist finds himself here... Just how DO you grow crops properly? Or fix economies? Indeed, how many of the famous faces during the opening did you recognise? And how many should an intelligent person spot?
Joking to one side, it is, broadly speaking, too late, isn't it? The world Michael Judge creates in "Idiocracy", some 500 years into the future, has its blueprint in our own time now: Destruction Derbies and WWE are popular; politics is spectacle, White House discourse is a joke; Presidents are blowhards - in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are also bodybuilders; movies make millions of dollars yet suck; society and popular culture have been saturated by sex and sexuality, and a plummy voice often induces mockery.
If there was one moment in Judge's dystopia which struck me more than any other, it was when the protagonist of a television programme entitled 'Ow, my balls!' (don't ask) is ambushed by a member of the public and kicked in a place you should not need spelling out to you. This was primarily out of the fact it replicates true-to-life instances of people being incapable of telling apart televised fiction from reality, as when especially nefarious soap characters are confronted on public transport by fans of the show or Paul Eddington is congratulated on doing such a great job as Prime Minister, despite only playing a fictitious one in "Yes, Prime Minister". We are already here, aren't we?
"Idiocracy" tells the story of Joe, played by the aforementioned Wilson, who is a lowly desk clerk on an anonymous American air base early in this century. His job, like his life, is safe and easy; he doesn't want trouble and doesn't test himself - just to work for long enough to build up a pension and retire. Joe is dragged out of this bubble by the higher-ups for a hibernation experiment, which is outlined in a manner I usually detest in films via exposition and slides, but is actually here very funny. He is meant to be asleep, or frozen, in a special pod (a little like the crew members of those spaceships in science-fiction for long journeys) for one year so that the authorities can observe its efficiency. Alas, something goes wrong, and due to the secrecy of the experiment, both he and a sex-worker named Maya (Maya Rudolph), whom was also selected for the experiment, awake to find themselves five hundred years into America's future.
This simple enough premise provides Judge the opportunity to hold up a mirror to American, indeed Western, society - what might our attitudes and culture lead us to? What happens when we keep aiming as low as we do? Judge's future struck me, via its architecture and the characteristics of its inhabitants, as an odd amalgamation of Las Vegas and the Deep South - seemingly the two cultural hubs of present-day America Judge fears having the most influence on its future. In the America of "Idiocracy", people are suddenly incapable of stringing together a handful of words and dress atrociously; commercialism reigns, so much so that people actually walk around with advertisements on their shirts. Unfettered materialism and consumption have led to piles of garbage the size of buildings; society is so sexualised that prostitution has infiltrated everyday cafés. Many of the women, in fact, walk around in tight tops which accentuate their cleavage - I imagine this is Judge playing a trick on the audience - if we like looking, we're as stupid as the rest of them, right?
From merely a generic standpoint, there are a lot of laughs, and the material is a lot better than merely dumping a load of stupid characters into a piece and having them say or do stupid things for easy laughs. Joe's lone friend already belonging to this nightmare-world is a certain Frito (Dax Shepard), whose house his hibernation pod initially crashes into, but whose idiocy carries such poised authenticity for the world Judge creates that we can go along with the joke without feeling like the mentally challenged are being mocked.
Crucially, Judge gets the basics right - we like the protagonist and there is a sense of urgency as he seeks to evade capture from the authorities of this brave new world. What Judge has made is something character driven - Joe, when we first meet him, is watching wrestling on TV, bored on the job, and that the film concludes with him running his own violent gauntlet for means of everyone else's entertainment cannot be a coincidence. Eventually, he will also come to learn of responsibility; that having some kind of input is important in life and that you cannot just keep evading this stuff.
More recently, people (curiously on both sides of the political spectrum) have taken to describing the here-and-now as being the arrival of Idiocracy, particularly in the wake of President Trump, but let's remember it was Bill Clinton on TV in 1992 playing the saxophone in his sunglasses which did its bit in sapping the substance out of politics, or dumbing down important decisions. For another comedy which plays by no one's rules which has something to say on contemporary society; culture and where it might take us, see 2013's "God Bless America", but see this as well.
Joking to one side, it is, broadly speaking, too late, isn't it? The world Michael Judge creates in "Idiocracy", some 500 years into the future, has its blueprint in our own time now: Destruction Derbies and WWE are popular; politics is spectacle, White House discourse is a joke; Presidents are blowhards - in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are also bodybuilders; movies make millions of dollars yet suck; society and popular culture have been saturated by sex and sexuality, and a plummy voice often induces mockery.
If there was one moment in Judge's dystopia which struck me more than any other, it was when the protagonist of a television programme entitled 'Ow, my balls!' (don't ask) is ambushed by a member of the public and kicked in a place you should not need spelling out to you. This was primarily out of the fact it replicates true-to-life instances of people being incapable of telling apart televised fiction from reality, as when especially nefarious soap characters are confronted on public transport by fans of the show or Paul Eddington is congratulated on doing such a great job as Prime Minister, despite only playing a fictitious one in "Yes, Prime Minister". We are already here, aren't we?
"Idiocracy" tells the story of Joe, played by the aforementioned Wilson, who is a lowly desk clerk on an anonymous American air base early in this century. His job, like his life, is safe and easy; he doesn't want trouble and doesn't test himself - just to work for long enough to build up a pension and retire. Joe is dragged out of this bubble by the higher-ups for a hibernation experiment, which is outlined in a manner I usually detest in films via exposition and slides, but is actually here very funny. He is meant to be asleep, or frozen, in a special pod (a little like the crew members of those spaceships in science-fiction for long journeys) for one year so that the authorities can observe its efficiency. Alas, something goes wrong, and due to the secrecy of the experiment, both he and a sex-worker named Maya (Maya Rudolph), whom was also selected for the experiment, awake to find themselves five hundred years into America's future.
This simple enough premise provides Judge the opportunity to hold up a mirror to American, indeed Western, society - what might our attitudes and culture lead us to? What happens when we keep aiming as low as we do? Judge's future struck me, via its architecture and the characteristics of its inhabitants, as an odd amalgamation of Las Vegas and the Deep South - seemingly the two cultural hubs of present-day America Judge fears having the most influence on its future. In the America of "Idiocracy", people are suddenly incapable of stringing together a handful of words and dress atrociously; commercialism reigns, so much so that people actually walk around with advertisements on their shirts. Unfettered materialism and consumption have led to piles of garbage the size of buildings; society is so sexualised that prostitution has infiltrated everyday cafés. Many of the women, in fact, walk around in tight tops which accentuate their cleavage - I imagine this is Judge playing a trick on the audience - if we like looking, we're as stupid as the rest of them, right?
From merely a generic standpoint, there are a lot of laughs, and the material is a lot better than merely dumping a load of stupid characters into a piece and having them say or do stupid things for easy laughs. Joe's lone friend already belonging to this nightmare-world is a certain Frito (Dax Shepard), whose house his hibernation pod initially crashes into, but whose idiocy carries such poised authenticity for the world Judge creates that we can go along with the joke without feeling like the mentally challenged are being mocked.
Crucially, Judge gets the basics right - we like the protagonist and there is a sense of urgency as he seeks to evade capture from the authorities of this brave new world. What Judge has made is something character driven - Joe, when we first meet him, is watching wrestling on TV, bored on the job, and that the film concludes with him running his own violent gauntlet for means of everyone else's entertainment cannot be a coincidence. Eventually, he will also come to learn of responsibility; that having some kind of input is important in life and that you cannot just keep evading this stuff.
More recently, people (curiously on both sides of the political spectrum) have taken to describing the here-and-now as being the arrival of Idiocracy, particularly in the wake of President Trump, but let's remember it was Bill Clinton on TV in 1992 playing the saxophone in his sunglasses which did its bit in sapping the substance out of politics, or dumbing down important decisions. For another comedy which plays by no one's rules which has something to say on contemporary society; culture and where it might take us, see 2013's "God Bless America", but see this as well.