“Idiocracy”

Logline: The most average man in the US military is cryogenically frozen in an experiment which accidentally lasts 500 years, awakening to discover society has become so dumbed down he is the smartest man on the planet
Featuring: Maya Rudolph, Luke Wilson
Director: Mike Judge
Writer: Mike Judge and Etan Cohen, story by Mike Judge
Distributor: idiots at Twentieth Century Fox
TOP SECRET Opening Week Release Pattern: Opens at the Atlantic Palace 10 in Alhambra CA, the Allen 16 in Allex TX, the Mansell Crossing 14 in Alpharetta GA, the Atlantic Station Stadium 16, the Parkway Point 15 and the Phipps Plaza 14 in Atlanta, the Austell 22 in Austell GA, the Barton Creek Square 14, the Gateway 16 and the Tinseltown 17 in Austin, the Brea West Stadium Cinemas in Brea CA, the Buena Park Metroplex 18 in Buena Park CA, the Mall of Georgia 20 in Buford GA, the Burbank 16 in Burbank, the Riverstone 15 in Canton GA, the Lakeline Mall Cinemas in Cedar Park TX, the Century City 15 in Century City, the Hollywood 24 in Chamblee GA, the Winnetka All Stadium 21 in Chatsworth CA, the City North 14 in Chicago, the Chicago Heights 15 in Chicago Heights IL, the Conyers Crossroads 16 in Conyers GA, the Covina 30 in Covina CA, the Country Club Hills 16 in Country Club Hills IL, the Crestwood 18 in Crestwood IL, the Showplace 16 in Crystal Lake IL, the Culver Plaza 6 in Culver City, the Dallas 17 and the Keystone Park 16 in Dallas, the North Dekalb Mall 16 in Decauter GA, the Arbor Place 18 in Douglasville GA, the Medlock Crossing 18 in Duluth GA, the Tinseltown 17 in Grapevine TX, the Gurnee Cinemas in Gurnee IL, the ArcLight 15 in Hollywood, the Greenway Palace Stadium 24, the Gulf Pointe 30, the Marq*E Stadium 23, the Studio 30, the Tinseltown USA 290, the Tinseltown Westchase 17, the Willowbrook 24 and the Yorktown 15 in Houston, the Deerbrook 24 in Humble TX, the Irvine 21 in Irvine CA, the MacArthur Marketplace 16 in Irving TX, the Tinseltown 17 in Jacinto City TX, the Katy 19 and the Katy Mills 20 in Katy TX, the Town 16 in Kennesaw GA, the Lakewood Center Stadium 16 in Lakewood CA, the Discover Mills 18 in Lawrenceville GA, the Lincolnshire Stadium 20 in Lincolnshire IL, the Stonecrest 16 in Lithonia GA, the Long Beach 26 and the Pine Square 16 in Long Beach, the Beverly Center 13 and the Bridge cinema de lux in Los Angeles, the Southlake 24 in Morrow GA, the Naperville 16 in Naperville IL, the Norwalk 20 in Norwalk CA, the Block 30 and the Stadium 25 in Orange, the Paseo Stadium 14 in Pasadena CA, the Hollywood Movies 20 in Pasadena TX, the Tinseltown USA Cinemas in Pflugerville TX, the Legacy Cinemas and the Tinseltown USA Cinemas in Plano TX, the Puente Hills 20 in Puente Hills CA, the Round Lake Beach 18 in Round Lake Beach IL, the Criterion 6 in Santa Monica, the Streets of Woodfield 20 in Schaumberg IL, the Schererville 16 in Schererville IL, the Sherman Oaks 5 in Sherman Oaks CA, the Simi Valley Plaza 10 in Simi Valley CA, the Village Crossing 18 in Skokie IL, the Snellville 12 in Snellville GA, the South Gate 20 in South Gate CA, the Southlake Town Center 14 in Southlake TX, the First Colony 24 in Sugarland TX, the Rolling Hills 20 in Torrance CA, the Universal City 18 in Unviersal City CA, the Webster 18 in Webster TX, the Avco Cinema Center in Westwood, the Promenade 16 in Woodland Hills, the Tinseltown 17 in Woodlands TX and the Seven Bridges Cinemas in Woodridge IL (86 locations total) on September 1
MPAA Rating: R for language and sex-related humor
Running Time: 84 minutes
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)
Sound Format: Dolby Digital, DTS

‘Idiocracy’
Are things bad now? `Idiocracy’ imagines a future in which people are, well, take a guess. Its satire is spot-on.

By Carina Chocano
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 4, 2006

What does Mike Judge have to do to get a movie released and marketed? He could stop making satires as merciless and spot-on as this one, for one thing. His second film in seven years, “Idiocracy,” was completed nearly two years ago and dumped on Friday, reviewless and unmarketed, in six markets not including New York and San Francisco. (Because who could possibly be interested in the long-awaited movie by the director of “Office Space” there?) It’s this sort of vote of no-confidence that gets people wondering — just how bad could it be? Which raises the issue of what “bad” means to the studio that unleashed “Date Movie” and “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties” on an unsuspecting populace.

Judge has a gift for delivering brutal satire in the trappings of low comedy and for making heroes out of ordinary people whose humanity makes them suspect in a world where every inch of space, including mental, is mediated. The movie would be worth seeing for its skewering of the health system alone — in the future, hospitals will resemble a cross between a chain auto-diagnostic center and a Carl’s Jr., powered by Help Me technology — even if its opening thesis on the moment in history (roughly now) that evolution tipped into devolution weren’t so clear-eyed.

“Idiocracy” is Judge’s pitch-black, bleakly hilarious vision of an American future so bespoiled by rapacious corporations and so dumbed-down by junk culture that the president of the United States is a three-time “Smackdown!” champion and former super porn-star. The movie begins with a comparison of two family trees. A high-IQ couple waits for the perfect time to have a child, a decision they don’t take lightly, while elsewhere, in the trailer park, the dim bulbs breed like rabbits. The high-IQ couple waits too long, the husband dies of stress during fertility treatments, and their line stops there. Meanwhile, the moron population explodes.

Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson), however, is not actually a moron. He’s an average, unambitious, essentially lazy guy biding his time in the Army until he can collect his pension. It’s his perfect averageness (that and his dead parents and no siblings or wife) that make him the perfect candidate for an Army experiment in cryogenics. The idea is to freeze the best soldiers for thawing at a later date, when they’re really needed. Joe is chosen as the guinea pig, and because the Army can’t find a servicewoman to meet the same criteria, they freeze a hooker named Rita (Maya Rudolph) alongside him.

The experiment is meant to last a year, but in that time the base shuts down, is replaced by a Fuddruckers, and Joe and Rita are forgotten for more than 500 years. Meanwhile, humanity devolves to the point where it can’t take care of its basic needs, like dealing with garbage or growing crops, and when Joe and Rita find themselves unearthed during the great garbage avalanche of 2505, they discover to their great surprise that they are the smartest people on Earth.

An IQ and aptitude test he takes in prison (non-payment of his hospital bill) gets Joe taken to the White House, where President Camacho (Terry Alan Crews) makes him secretary of the Interior and entrusts him to fix all the problems. But Joe is focused on getting home and enlists his incompetent lawyer and stupid friend, Frito Lay (Dax Shepard), with leading him, and Rita, to a time machine.

The plot, naturally, is silly and not exactly bound by logic. But it’s Judge’s gimlet-eyed knack for nightmarish extrapolation that makes “Idiocracy” a cathartic delight.

In the future, Fuddruckers will become Buckrudders — and then finally just come and say what it’s been longing to say for years. (It will remain, however, a popular destination for children’s birthday parties.) Carl’s Jr. will adopt as its motto, “Fuck you, I’m eating.” The phone company will have merged with several media companies, the U.S. government and, of course, Carl’s Jr. Costco will house one of the nation’s top law schools. (It will also have warehouses roughly the size of Connecticut.) The streets will resemble Universal CityWalk in bad decline.

And the No. 1 movie in America — well, see it for yourself and find out.