Idiocracy

Plot

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

Release Year: 2006

Rating: 6.4/10 (53,839 voted)

Critic's Score: 64/100

Director:
Mike Judge

Stars: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard

Storyline
The purpose of the program set up by the Pentagon, called the "Human Hibernation Project," is designed so that the military can save their best men for when they're needed most. According to the officers heading the project, too many times the talents and expensive training of the best pilots and soldiers go to waste during times of peace. So they enlist Bauers (Wilson), the most under-achieving average guy they've got, to be the test subject for the initial hibernation experiment. Also participating in the top-secret program is Rita (Rudolph), a prostitute who agreed to take part in exchange for dropping some criminal charges against her, among other things. Of course, the experiment, which was to last only a year, goes under due to the arrest of Officer Collins, who is busted for heading a prostitution ring. Seeing as though he was in charge of the experiment, one of the only ones who knew of its existence, and "due to a lot of top-secret red tape…

Writers: Mike Judge, Mike Judge

Cast:

Luke Wilson
–

Joe Bauers

Maya Rudolph
–

Rita

Dax Shepard
–

Frito

Terry Crews
–

President Camacho

(as Terry Alan Crews)

Anthony 'Citric' Campos
–

Secretary of Defense

David Herman
–

Secretary of State

Sonny Castillo
–

Prosecutor

Kevin McAfee
–

Bailiff

(as Kevin S. McAfee)

Robert Musgrave
–

Sgt. Keller

Michael McCafferty
–

Officer Collins

(as Mike McCafferty)

Christopher Ryan
–

Hospital Technician

Justin Long
–

Doctor

Heath Jones
–

Cop #1

Eli Muñoz
–

Horny Guy

Patrick Fischler
–

Yuppie Husband

Taglines:
The Future Is A No Brainer

Release Date: 25 January 2007

Filming Locations: Austin Convention Center – 500 E. Cesar Chavez Street, Austin, Texas, USA

Opening Weekend: $177,559
(USA)
(3 September 2006)
(130 Screens)

Gross: $438,653
(USA)
(1 October 2006)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min

Did You Know?

Trivia:

The premises of this movie – someone waking up several hundred years in the future and finding that people have gotten much stupider due to evolutionary pressure – was previously used in "The Marching Morons", a short story written in 1951 by Cyril M. Kornbluth.

Goofs:

Continuity:
At the cut to the close shot during the motorcade down Pennsylvania Avenue, the buildings along the street vanish, leaving Pres. Camacho's bike and the bus against an empty sky. They reappear at the cut back to the long shot.

Quotes:

[first lines]

Narrator:
As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man…

User Review

This is the beginning of a marketing mystery

Rating: 8/10


There's no other word for it…Fox dumped this out, with NO marketing
of any kind. Nobody in the country, other than those who have been
looking forward to this film, know anything about it. All the red flags
have flown. It has to be a mess, it can't be anywhere near as good as
Office Space, right? Wrong. Though Office Space it ain't, this film
definitely has satirical bite and wit. It's a misfire on certain
levels, but who's to blame is left to mystery.

Based on what is currently showing in theatres, I can say IDIOCRACY is
a good movie. It's funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It's
effective, sometimes ingenious. What it isn't as far as I can tell, is
finished. We will see something come of this film again, whether it's
an extended cut or reshoots. Alone it can be hilarious. It's ballsy at
times.

Leaving the theatre, looking around at the mall, I was surrounded by
advertisements and billboards, commercialism and stupidity. It's not
quite as damning a dystopia as 1984, but this movie paints an ugly
future for our culture. And there doesn't seem to be much anybody can
do about it. Anyway, go see this if you can and try to find out what
happened that it was so specifically buried.