Monday, June 18, 2007

IDIOCRACY - a world where the biggest-selling movie is called "ASS"

IDIOCRACY is a live-action comedy from the creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, Mike Judge. Sadly, the wickedly funny mind that brought us perfectly formed short-format animation hasn't quite mastered the feature length format. The writing is uneven, with a smattering of biting satire offset by some weak dialogue, obvious humour and the inexplicable casting of Maya Rudolph in a lead role. Still, there's enough comedy in the central premise to warrant a DVD rental.

Mike Judge starts from the following worrying fact: idiot chavs are having more kids than clever, professional people. This demographic dumbing-down is pushing evolution into reverse - we're all regressing into...well....Beavis and Butthead. Luke Wilson and Maya play a present-day Joe Average and a hooker who have been cryogenically frozen and wake up in the future imperfect. In the new IDIOCRACY, dumb people water crops with gatorade and convicts get "rehabilitated" in a Running Man style TV show.

Ultimately, Mike Judge can't sustain the satire and the narrative is pretty weak. But there are enough unpleasant truths to prevent me from dismissing this film in the manner of the studio that buried it in straight to video hell.

IDIOCRACY went on limited release in the US in September 2006 but didn't get a cinematic release in the UK. It is, however, available on DVD.

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