Idiocracy (2006)
January 22, 2025 1:07 PM - Subscribe

[TRAILER] In 2005, average in every way private Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) is selected to take part in a secret military experiment to put him in hibernation for a year along with a woman named Rita (Maya Rudolph). The slumbering duo is forgotten when the base they are stored on is closed down and are left in stasis until 2505. When they finally wake up, they discover the average intelligence of humans has decreased so much that Joe is now the smartest man in the world.

Also starring Dax Shepard, Terry Crews, Sara Rue, Anthony 'Citric' Campos, David Herman, Sonny Castillo, Andrew Wilson, Scarface, Kevin McAfee, Robert Musgrave, Michael McCafferty, Christopher Ryan, Thomas Haden Church, Justin Long, Stephen Root.

Directed by Mike Judge. Screenplay by Etan Cohen, Mike Judge. Story by Mike Judge. Produced by Elysa Koplovitz, Mike Judge. Cinematography by Tim Suhrstedt. Edited by David Rennie. Music by Theodore Shapiro.

71% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Check JustWatch for streaming options in your country, but in the US at least, they are few/limited.

The entire film is currently on Archive.org, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown (38 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Having survived being ignored on initial release, overly praised within a few years ("Idiocracy wasn't supposed to be a documentary!"), and then taken humorlessly literally ("It's promoting eugenics!") maybe this dumbass, but very funny comedy can now be watched as what it is: a silly satire about the end result of de-valuing intelligence.

Probably one of the most quotable stupid comedies of the 21st century.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:09 PM on January 22 [9 favorites]


Anyway, it popped into my head today because this meme needed to exist.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:11 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]


This is one of the few times you and I disagree. While I enjoyed bits of it, overall I was underwhelmed. And I went in expecting to and wanting to love it. But I'll give it another shot just for you, DOT.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:14 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]


Keep in mind that in addition to calling it "very funny" I also called it "dumbass" and "very stupid."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:17 PM on January 22 [6 favorites]


It’s been almost two decades and I still say “it’s got … electrolytes” every time I open a Gatorade or drop a Nuun into a water bottle
posted by thecaddy at 1:53 PM on January 22 [7 favorites]


I’m one of the humorless people disturbed over the eugenics and unable to get past it. But as an unemployed person I like the reminder that free movies are out there on the internet :)
posted by bunderful at 2:15 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]


I too hated this movie. I found it to contain an extremely superior and dark politics. It's not that I dont' get satire, I just think the filmmaker genuinely thinks everyone but him is dumb, and I don't vibe with that message nor do I care to watch an hour and a half of that. Whereas I do like a lot of humor that is itself dumb!

Kinda surprised it hadn't already been posted here!
posted by latkes at 3:02 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]


I'm comfortable saying the movie is emphatically not about eugenics, mostly because the movie is 84 minutes long and after less than four minutes, not a bit of it could even be uncharitably interpreted as having the slightest thing to do with that take. The opening prologue is just a bunch of silly yadda yadda to set up the premise. I mean, you could go with the eugenics read, but you could also interpret it as saying that military largesse will save mankind, and I don't think that's any less silly or unfair. Maybe we just don't base our final take of a farce on its 200-ish second long prologue, huh?

On top of that, the movie is hardly subtle about what it is about, so it would be a wild, wild argument to say they were being subtextual or sneaky in some way. This movie is a big cartoon hammer, bonking us over the head not just about the devaluing of intelligence, but also about how crass and stupid entertainment, capitalism, and government look when we slice away the outer veneer.

Mostly, for me, the movie is a series of brilliant sight gags and one-liners held aloft by the shaggy dog of a premise: which is that we're letting our lives get stupider and stupider and that trajectory gets ugly. Much like in his earlier film, Office Space, Judge is terrific at setting up a world that lets us take a step back and laugh at buffoonery we've gotten too used to letting slide. Obviously here, that is pushed further, but it's still recognizable. The thing is, just like in Office Space, his snark and silliness make it hard to keep the whole thing moving. These are not people, so much as human props used in a series of jokes. Even with its short runtime, this movie will taste your patience a little.

I don't have it in me to argue that it's a great film, as it's really more of a feature-length joke delivery system. But wow, are there a lot of laughs.

There are so many great bits and jokes in this movie, from the advertising that has slid hopelessly into threats, horniness, and unvarnished bullshit (but in a way that still seems of a progression with the worst of today) to the world's stupidest cops, who still seem somehow like cops, to political campaigns that have taken the "vote for the guy you'd like to have a beer with" thing to its horrible end.

The movie holds up to repeated viewings, too, as the sight gags are layered and layered. Like a vintage Simpsons episode, there's always something hilarious going by almost too fast to see.

It does require a certain amount of contempt for our fellow man to go on this ride, but "fortunately" the 21st century will get many of us there, sooner or later.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:39 PM on January 22 [10 favorites]


"Welcome to Costco. I love you."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:00 PM on January 22 [7 favorites]


"Welcome to Costco. I love you."

Yeah I know this place is pretty good, I went to law school here.

I like crass dumb shit, so I love this movie.
posted by Literaryhero at 4:05 PM on January 22 [6 favorites]


To be fair, I could really use a "Welcome to Costco. I love you." this week.
posted by miss-lapin at 4:26 PM on January 22 [3 favorites]


I agree that this movie is both really fucking funny (in a lot of places) and really fucking stupid (throughout). I don't think it is about eugenics, because I don't think it is smart enough to actually be "about" something in that way. Like, there's not a lot of subtext here, ya know? That said, I do think one can find an unfortunate strain of "poor people is dumb" running through it, but even that is mitigated by the fact that EVERYONE in the future is dumb as box of hammers. But yeah, I think DOT is mostly correct that it is a thin premise stretched to the limit for the purpose of making a lot of really funny gags, and that it does a good job of taking the stupidest parts of modern life and extrapolating them to their absurd extremes.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:26 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]


I always thought the use of Costco was odd. In terms of giant businesses they could go against, they picked one of the arguably least evil ones to skewer (employees make a living wage, cap on markups, has healthy relationship with vendors)
posted by lizjohn at 4:48 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]


Even a "good" behemoth corporation can do behemoth corporation shit.

Costco's employee union just voted to go on strike.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:12 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]


Even a "good" behemoth corporation can do behemoth corporation shit.

Still think it should have been Walmart
posted by lizjohn at 6:13 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]


Honestly, President Camacho is wildly underrated. I would happily trade Biden or Trump for him any day.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:46 PM on January 22 [5 favorites]


I mean, there is no right and wrong here! I am genuinely glad this movie is hilarious to some folks! We all need to laugh! I personally did not enjoy it because I experienced it as misanthropic and classist (whereas the target of Office Space felt quite different to me). What can I say I did not laugh. But it's totally ok for us to feel differently about it!
posted by latkes at 9:23 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]


I feel like the South Park movie is a nice compliment to this one in its level of stupidity vs. humor vs. dudes with weak politics attempting social commentary in the form of "everyone's so stupid!!" Which is to say I think a good barometer for whether someone would find this funny would be if they found the South Park movie funny. I have a soft spot for both, but mostly because they're just jam packed with some really funny quotes, not because of any actual incisive satire. I don't blame someone for finding the other variables too distracting that it overshadows the humor and being generally turned off by it all.
posted by windbox at 10:19 PM on January 22 [3 favorites]


Go away, I'm 'batin!
posted by Literaryhero at 11:38 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]


My favourite bit of trivia (maybe entirely apocryphal) is that they picked Crocs as the shoes of the future because they were unknown and absurd looking, so very cheap and just a funny aesthetic. Subsequently they blew up and made the whole choice extremely fitting with the themes of the movie.

I've seen this once or twice and I'm equally mixed on it. There are lots of funny lines and observations, but there's a meanness and cynicism at the heart of the movie that, for me, undercuts the comedy. Office Space rode that line perfectly while this leans a little too far into "laughing at" over "laughing with".

I do also say "it's got what plants crave" to myself practically every time I water a plant or electrolytes get mentioned.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:44 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]


Mostly, for me, the movie is a series of brilliant sight gags and one-liners held aloft by the shaggy dog of a premise: which is that we're letting our lives get stupider and stupider and that trajectory gets ugly. Much like in his earlier film, Office Space, Judge is terrific at setting up a world that lets us take a step back and laugh at buffoonery we've gotten too used to letting slide. Obviously here, that is pushed further, but it's still recognizable. The thing is, just like in Office Space, his snark and silliness make it hard to keep the whole thing moving. These are not people, so much as human props used in a series of jokes.

This is it. I think that Mike Judge may be pretty conservative IRL; not long ago, I started rewatching the early episodes of King of the Hill, and in the very first episode, the Hills are investigated by a caseworker from child protective services because Bobby gives himself a black eye by bouncing a ball inside. And the caseworker is the most egregiously self-righteous dork imaginable. (A big part of my job nowadays involves scanning local newspapers for news relevant to my employer, and I get to read about all the kids who die or are deeply traumatized by abusive parents, and inevitably someone wants to know where CPS was; it's the flipside to "don't you dare tell me how to raise my kids" knee-jerk agitprop like that.) When Judge tried to do a cartoon about the insufferable liberals who lived in his head, The Goode Family, it failed hard.

So, in his more successful works, he tends to leaven it out a bit. Yeah, the "stupid people shouldn't breed" stuff isn't great (although that phrase used to be on a T-shirt, so he was hardly alone in believing that), but lots of other stuff works. Every time I see a site that's almost unreadable because of pop-up ads, I think of that TV or monitor that Dax Shepard's character is watching; most of the doctors that I work with are pretty smart people, but every now and then I meet one that reminds me of Justin Long's doctor. (Not literally that dumb, but one where I make a mental note not to ever have to see them for anything if I can avoid it.) And, of course, the little bits here and there about how thoroughly corporatization had saturated life; I think that Judge's anti-corporate bent generally works. But it probably isn't an accident that the only series that he's been associated with that I've watched the complete run of is Daria, a Beavis and Butt-head spin-off that he really had nothing to do with.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:40 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]


This is a fun movie. And definitely stupid. And definitely has a message that resonates in terms of how society that prizes entertainment can lead to, I don't know, electing someone who will do horrible things but he had a great tv show and said things that were entertaining even if they never held up to scrutiny because who needs scrutiny.
posted by Atreides at 7:11 AM on January 23 [6 favorites]


I think that Mike Judge may be pretty conservative IRL

Yeah, he does give very strong Centrist American with Conservative Overtones vibes in most of his work. Like, yeah the big corporations are bad and everything, but boy aren't those hippies and liberals a bunch of annoying dorks? Cf. the South Park guys.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:56 PM on January 23 [4 favorites]


I can wait so good!

Also, hopefully not a spoiler, but the end credits… must watch
posted by one4themoment at 4:04 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]


I think of that TV or monitor that Dax Shepard's character is watching

Ow my balls!

Man I started laughing my ass off just thinking of that. And I know it doesn't make sense, but I for some reason always make a connection between that and Hot Ones.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:46 AM on January 24 [3 favorites]


Also re: Judge's politics - I dunno, I've always thought that he was a bog-standard liberal and his politics match those of most gen-X liberals, including taking an "I-don't-accept-political-labels" stance. I think the prevailing ideology is basically like: corporations suck, big box stores suck, bosses suck, jobs suck, politicians suck...but it's the individual people who are so STUPID for choosing or voting for these things, man, we gotta fix STUPIDITY. There's truth to the fact that people are dumbasses for sure, it's just that this is the only side he's interested in for the purposes of this satire and why it's aged pretty poorly or reads as cruel to a lot of people.

I this is a pretty pervasive liberal worldview since the 90s and has continued today, this idea that things are so bad because it's just a nation of idiots, or half a nation of idiots, who have wrecked things - not because of anything systemic or related to power structures or those in power or capitalism. It's the people who are the problem, and their unfixable thirst for violence, cruelty, ignorance, etc.

In Idiocracy Judge sort of grazes this when it's mentioned that the Brawndo Corporation has basically "bought" the FDA and the DHHS, and "sponsors" members of Kamacho's cabinet. But the anti-corporate element is glossed over for gags, and I'm not saying I would expect this movie to have any kind of incisive anti-Capitalist analysis, I just think his politics are revealed in this idea that's like, yeah, all this stuff is bad, but stupid people have truly allowed this to happen.
posted by windbox at 9:07 AM on January 24 [8 favorites]


The movie definitely argues that everyone is stupid, but it does not argue that people are stupid in a homogenous way.

Everyone in the film is stupid, but they are stupid in particular ways. The doctor at the hospital is smug and self-satisfied, overly impressed with his own limited intellect, and completely unwilling to listen to anything his patient actually has to say. The cops are mindlessly and uncritically performing a series of scripts, hoping they get the chance to crack skulls. The lawyer doesn't care about anything beyond what his cool job (that the film points out is a nepo thing, btw) can buy him. The judge is less concerned with justice than resolving the case in a way that will please the public. The politicians see themselves as riding a fabulous grift, the preservation of which is less dependent on whether they do a good job than that balance pleasing their corporate donors with maintaining public approval. Is there anything in these five examples that doesn't ring sorta true for our time, if you look past the cartoonish exaggeration?

This is why I do not at all agree the movie is classist or believes that it's all the fault of those stupid people. Everyone is stupid, but people are stupid in their own ways, all across the socioeconomic spectrum.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:44 AM on January 24 [7 favorites]


I wish I had more reasons to shout “go away! I’m baitin’!”
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:40 AM on January 24


is it possible to watch several seasons of King of the Hill and make definitive and narrow judgements on Mike Judge's politics?

I see trends and the shape of what might be his politics, but that series has stuck over time and I think there is development in the writing, I guess I'm just a fan of the show in general

I do think there's some conservatism to Judge, and a reactionary tone to some of his writing, but if Texas was more like Hank Hill I also think it would be immeasurably improved by that. Idiocracy is fine, but when people speak of it like it's the pinnacle of satire I tune them right out. What DOT said, basically.
posted by ginger.beef at 1:27 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]


I realize MeFi loves a false binary, but we really do not have to choose between thinking this is horrible trash for vicious misanthropes OR declaring it the 21st century version of Jonathan Swift. Many, many possible evaluations are available in between.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:44 PM on January 24 [5 favorites]


HOW DARE YE
posted by ginger.beef at 2:12 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]


Speculating about Mike Judge's mysterious politics as well as the politics of individual KOTH characters is a favorite pastime of Mike Judge fans (me). It's just always going to come with the terrority!
posted by windbox at 2:29 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]


Indeed we do not have to call this movie satan incarnate nor heaven above, but also if you love this movie and I hate it, I don't think that implies anything about you as a person! Or vise versa!

Interesting and thought provoking conversation! So I'll give the movie props for inspiring that.
posted by latkes at 4:14 PM on January 24


Any discussion of Judge's politics needs to consider Tales from the Tour Bus (previously)

or not! Last time I checked, Judge is not a monster and we don't need to drag him into the entertainment products he touches/creates. I'm kind of with windbox though, it is fun for some reason. Like, who is this weird guy who creates somewhat subversive content that also echoes the status quo quite loudly, what is he up to? I really love that we started knowing Judge from his work in animation.
posted by ginger.beef at 5:14 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]


I mean, I think you have to be fairly pollyannaish to argue that we are not getting dramatically more stupid all the time. I'm sorry if that smacks of eugenics or something. But please go and read about Trump's "pronouncements" and, more important, the governmental reaction to even the most absurd of them (I'll spoil it for you: it's slavish and instant compliance) and then come back and tell me this film isn't Mike Judge's William Blake-style divine revelation of a nightmare future, ie, now, lol.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:33 PM on January 24


I wish I had more reasons to shout “go away! I’m baitin’!”

This is the year for you, I believe in you, give yourself permission

Was Luke Wilson kind of perfect for this? I can think of totally miscasting the role more easily than imagining a more apt choice
posted by ginger.beef at 7:42 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]


I don't know if any of y'all need to know that King of the Hill was just added to the list of FanFare-approved tv shows, but it was.
posted by box at 3:18 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]


I hadn't watched this since about 2007 or 2008 and my initial impression of the film at the time was being underwhelmed (I wasn't a Beavis and Butthead fan and I hadn't seen Office Space at the time). But it has been a frequent reference point in the last decade (especially since 2016 for obvious reasons) and its presence here gave me the impetus to give it another shot over the weekend.

Watching it now with Trump II well on its way? Kind of underwhelmed again and I found it mostly unfunny. Tonally it is very smug, the satire is shallow, relies on stereotypes and the worldbuilding is pretty poor (America is dumber and falling apart but somehow managed a post-racial society? Where's the rest of the world in this context?) While I agree that the argument that the film promotes eugenics is kind of a literal take on a dumb movie, the idea that "stupidity is hereditary" that is at the core of this film though is unfortunately echoed in many of the old racial & poverty arguments in eugenics and I think a smarter writer could have done something more interesting and meaningful with that. The politics in this is overall stupid even as a fairly weak "satire" IMO. I get why some people see this as prescient but America's problems aren't because poor people are dumb, have too many babies and have bad taste nor can your problems be fixed by a Capraesque aw shucks everyman from a middle class background. YMMV, I guess.

Some of the casting works though. Luke Wilson as a lazy dumb guy is well chosen as I think if it was someone less likable the film would be more insufferable. Maya Rudolph is largely wasted - the only black woman with a speaking role and she's a prostitute with a heart of gold? I did find Dax Shepard remarkable in the role of Frito (is this guy even acting? Its a master class in acting stupid). Overall the film reminds me less of Simpsons and more of Family Guy (which has the same smug finger pointing shotgun humour). And watching them back to back, I think Office Space works better than Idiocracy. The characters are more likable and the jokes are more sustained.

By the way, what are those shirts everybody wears in this movie called? That satiny polyester material?
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:58 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]


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