Netflix & Chill #65: Idiocracy

Watched On: Hulu
Released: 2006
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolpha, Dax Shepherd
Directed By: Mike Judge
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Pick: Mine

Idiocracy is one of those movies that I've spent years hearing about but never actually sat down and watched it all the way through. It'd be on various cable channels over the years and again, I'd see some of it, but never actually all of it. So, when I discovered that the whole movie was on Hulu, I thought I'd sit down and finally watch the whole movie once and for all.  And you know what? I would say that it lived up to it's name and a certain amount of it's hype.

In 2005, Corporal Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), a US Army librarian is about as average as you can get- so, he's selected for a suspended animation experiment to preserve his average nature as the military is apparently concerned about the detriorating intelligence of future recruits. The military goes out and finds Rita (Maya Rudolph), a prostitute whose pimp 'Upgrayedd' is bribed to let her take part. They both enter the stasis chambers and the project gets forgotten once the officer in charge is arrested for starting his own prostitution ring with help from Upgrayedd.

Over the next five hundred years, 21st century society- which discourages smart people from reproducing and encourages not so smart people to reproduce so gradually humanity becomes stupider and stupider. Eventually, humanity can barely speak English and is obssessed with being as anti-intellectual as possible and individuals are named after various corporate products. Eventually Joe and Rita's capsules are unearthed in the collapse of a garbage pile and Joe's chamber crashes into the apartment of Frito Pendejo (Dax Shepherd) who kicks him out of his apartment.

Joe gets arrested for not having a bar code tattoo to pay for his doctor's appointment and is sent to prison when Frito is assigned as his lawyer. Joe tricks his way out of prison and finds Frito again, who tells him of a time machine in a nearby Costco store. Joe promises to start a bank account when he returns to his own time that would provide Frito with extreme wealth through the magic of compound interest. Costco, however, proves to be gigantic before Joe, Rita and Frito can reach the time machine, Joe is apprehended and taken to The White House where President Camacho (Terry Crews) appoints him Secretary of Interior and tells him he has one week to fix the food shortages, Dust Bowls and crippled economy.

Joe despairs at the enormity of the task, but soon realizes it might be easier to solve than he thought when he discovers that the plants are being watered not with water, but with Brawndo, a sports drink whose parent corporation purchased the FDA, FCC and USDA. Unfortunately, when Joe replaces Brawndo with water, their stock drops to zero and half the population loses their jobs and starts to riot and Joe is sentenced to death in a monster truck demolition derby.

Rita and Frito manage to prove that Joe's idea is right and he is given a full pardon. However, Frito then reveals that the 'time machine' is, in fact, just a history themed amusement ride (that's very inaccurate.) After President Camacho leaves office, Joe is elected President, marries Rita and then have three of the world's smartest children. Frito serves as Vice President, takes eight wives and ends up with thirty two children.

Overall: True story, this only made $495,303 at the box office, which seems insane to me given how much of a cult following this movie has attracted since then. As a satire, it's razor sharp and as commentary on contemporary American society it's absolutely savage. If Office Space was Judge's take on office culture in America, then Idiocracy takes aim at society at large and hits it's target dead center on. Brilliant movie all around and clocking in at just over an hour and a half, it's not that big of time committment either. My Grade: **** out of ****

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