I just saw "Idiocracy", the new movie from Mike Judge (the guy who made "Office Space"). The film stars Luke Wilson as an average man who's frozen in a government experiment and wakes up 500 years later to find that everyone is a moron. As we all know, idiots in trailer parks breed more than people with high IQs, and 500 years of that practice took its toll on society.
The first 30 minutes of the film made me laugh so hard that I was falling out of my chair, but the last hour was really lousy. It's almost like Judge just ran out of stupid people jokes, or just got tired of writing a movie and let a Saturday Night Live writer finish the script. Either way, it's definitely worth seeing just for the first part, so you should all go watch it this weekend.
What's that? Idiocracy isn't playing in your area? You're not alone. The movie actually premiered in early September, and even I didn't know about it because Fox buried the film, refusing to promote or even create a trailer for it. Here in Los Angeles, where even obscure movies are playing at 30 different theaters across the city, Idiocracy was only playing in one tiny theater on the edge of town. It wasn't even listed on the marquee outside.
So did Fox bury the film because it's bad? Not likely. While it's not the greatest film, it's at least equal to most of the dumb comedies released this year, and the premise alone is good enough to easily give it a big opening weekend. But instead, Idiocracy was only released in 125 theaters, and in only four major cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, and Chicago.
So what was the problem? Why did Fox refuse to even make a movie poster for Idiocracy? Fox buried the film because Fuddruckers, Starbucks, and Costco threatened to sue. These businesses are portrayed harshly in the movie, to say the least. In the future world of the film, Starbucks offers sexual favors with their coffee, Costco is a monopoly, and Fuddruckers has been renamed "Butt Fuckers" to appeal to the juvenile retards that populate the planet.
The butt fuckers joke is pretty funny. In fact, it's really funny, but was it really worth having the movie shelved? If Judge's contract hadn't required Fox to release the film in theaters, it would've went straight-to-DVD. I'm a big fan of sticking up for creative freedom, but Judge threw away the entire movie just to keep a butt fuckers joke? Really?
Perhaps I'd be more apt to stand up for Judge's cause if the majority of Idiocracy hadn't been so disappointing. When Judge made Office Space, the satire was spot-on. It honestly made people think about how meaningless corporate jobs are. It didn't change the world, but it still got people thinking, and that's a big deal.
A movie like idiocracy had an even better chance to get people thinking. We're at a time when TV is getting raunchier, kids are getting more profane at earlier ages, and personal responsibility is being replaced by mountains of debt. Idiocracy is fantastic satire when it hits on these themes, but the points are never driven home like in Office Space.
It's a shame. This country needs a movie like Idiocracy. We're seeing the effects of stupidity multiply at an alarming pace. Years back, the only credit cards available were Diner's Club and American Express, and you had to pay off your bill fully at the end of each month. Now anyone can get a credit card, and the companies encourage people to only pay off $15 a month. People are more desperate than ever because of endless debt, and with corporations counting all this phantom debt money (very little of which they'll ever actually receive) as increased profits, our economy suffers from the inflated worth.
Idiocracy wouldn't have changed all that, but it could have at least changed things for a few people. It would've encouraged discussions, which is the most you can hope for with a movie, especially a comedy. But Judge slacked off on the film, and then got arrogant and stubborn about keeping his jokes in it, and the whole thing was for naught. Sadly, with Judge's wide range of fans - from King of the Hill hicks to Office Space urbanites - he's the perfect guy to make a difference with his movies.
Too bad he didn't.
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