Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers

What’s it about? Idiocracy is a brilliant comedy written and directed by comedic genius Mike Judge, who has given us such classics as Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, and Office Space. It is a thoughtful look into the evolution of mankind where stupidity has run rampant and through sheer numbers, has overtaken the intelligent members of society. Generations of dumbing down has left humanity in a state of childlike comprehension, while simply regressing as a species. That’s where Joe Bauers comes in. An Army librarian that gets selected for a top-secret program because of his extremely average qualities. Joe is selected to be frozen for a year to test out the military’s cryogenic freezing chamber along with a prostitute named Rita. The plan goes awry however, when the military base is destroyed and the cryogenic chambers get discarded, not to be discovered for 500 years. Joe wakes up in the future, confused and unaware that he’s been transplanted so far ahead. He opens the cryogenic pod in a local man’s living room named Frito. Frito tosses Joe out and goes back to watching his mindless television. Joe then heads to a hospital to get help only to find out that he doesn’t have a tattoo on his wrist that identifies him and becomes a wanted criminal. He is soon arrested and taken to prison where he gets his tattoo, incorrectly labeling his as “Not Sure”. He then takes an aptitude test which reveals him to be the smartest man in the world. He escapes from prison simply by telling the guards he’s “supposed to be getting out today” and goes back to find Frito. After finding out there is a time machine, and that Frito can take him there, the two set off from Frito’s house. They come across Rita on the way to Costco, which is where the Time Machine is, and Joe is once again apprehended by the police. This time, he is taken to the White House and made Secretary of the interior because of his extremely high-test scores on his IQ test. The President then tells everyone that Joe is going to solve all of the world’s problems because his so smart. And he’s going to do it all in one week, or he’s going to be jailed again. They then take Joe out to a crop field where Joe finds that the crops are being watered with “Brawndo”, and energy drink that bought almost half the country and renamed it after itself. Joe convinces them to use water on the crops and Brawndo’s stocks plummet to zero, automatically triggering mass layoffs of the populace, and making Joe public enemy number one. Joe is sentenced to “rehabilitation” which is a euphemism for “public execution”, and is put in a stadium with two monster trucks. Meanwhile, Frito and a cameraman are out finding footage of growing crops to show everyone in the stadium so they will believe Joe. When Frito finally finds the crops, Rita puts it up on the big screen, and the President pardons Joe and saves him from “rehabilitation”.  

What’s good? Idiocracy is hilariously funny. Not just the dialogue, but the little things if you catch them. Most words are spelled phonetically. Everything can be bought as “adult”, meaning, it comes with a handjob. The language everybody uses is laugh-out-loud funny. I don’t know how they even recorded this without bursting into laughter on every take.  

What’s bad? There’s not a whole lot that is bad about Idiocracy. Probably the worst thing I can think of is the green screen effects throughout the movie aren’t the best. You can tell when somebody is standing or doing something in front of a green screen. The budget on Idiocracy was $2.4 million. Which, to you and me, sounds like a lot of money. But in the film industry, it isn’t all that much to make a movie with. 

The acting? The acting is superb from everybody in this movie. Believe it or not, it takes a lot of talent to sound stupid when you’re not really stupid. And it takes even more talent to sound even more stupider when you’re not as stupider as the stupider people is.  

The effects? As I said before, the effects aren’t great. The practical effects are as good as any other movie. They’re pretty standard. A few gunshots here and there. Frito’s car blew up at one point. But as far as the CGI and the green screen stuff, it’s obvious when it’s happening. The actors standing in front of it look kind of out of place, and just a little, off… 

Breeding differentials. The couple in the beginning, Carol and Trevor are an educated, upper-class pair with career goals and a future to look forward to. They end up never having children, thus stifling their intellectual branch of human evolution. Meanwhile, the redneck group breeds in litters, branching off and infiltrating other groups, dragging down the overall IQ of humanity, over generations. 

A double dose of pimping. Upgrayedd’s name is spelled thusly, with two “d’s” at the end, for a double dose of pimping. When Rita gets to the future, she goes to try to find Upgrayedd at a pay phone and finds 9726 listings for the name. It was original at the start of the century, but it became like “John” or “Steve” 500 years later. 

Collins loves pimpin’. Officer Collins is apparently very proud of the time he spent with Upgrayedd learning about the pimpin’ culture. As is very obvious from the many, many pictures that he’s taken of him with Upgrayedd and his numerous bitches in what are probably illegal activities.  

Alright, my niggas. Officer Collins feels fine using the phrase “alright, my niggas” now that he’s spent time with Upgrayedd and immersed himself in the pimping culture. What would of course be offensive coming from someone like Collins, from his point of view, is no longer a problem, because in his mind, he’s pimpin’.  

Why did no one remove the pods? If this was such a top-secret, important sort of program, how come nobody removed the cryogenic pods when they closed the base down? Instead, they just bulldozed the building over without clearing anything out of it? That seems like shoddy workmanship to me. You would at least think the military would have records of this expensive, top-secret program that they had going on and somebody would just think of it one day. “Didn’t we have some sort of freezing program going on in that base…?” “Huh, you know, I think we might have…” 

Hair loss and erections. The narrator says that one of the problems is that our greatest scientific minds weren’t focused on science or health but instead were focused on curing hair loss and prolonging erections. Do you know how many hair loss and erection pills are out there right now? Scientists ARE focused on curing hair loss and prolonging erections.  

The violence channel. When Joe crashes through Frito’s wall, Frito is watching “the violence channel”. There’s literally an entire channel dedicated to nothing but violence. With their flagship show being “Ow, My Balls!”. Which is just a sequence of videos where this guy gets hit in the balls in various ways. It’s a cruel future for some people. 

Toilet chair. Frito is watching television in his living room, and when he gets up, you can see that the chair he was sitting in is actually a toilet. He even flushes it later when he’s talking with Joe. Apparently, in the future, it’s too much of a hassle to go to the bathroom.  

Pictograms. At the hospital, when Joe is trying to get help from the nurse, she doesn’t write anything. There’s a series of pictures, and she’s trying to decipher which picture best fits Joes description of the symptoms that he’s having. After finally picking one, she sends him on his way. 

An important mix-up. The exam nurse has a three-pronged sensor. One that goes in your mouth, one that goes in your ear, and one that goes in… your butt. After he gives them to Joe, he realizes that he got them mixed up and takes them back to try to figure out which one is which before giving them back to Joe. Not exactly sanitary conditions for a hospital. 

His wife is a pilot? The doctor says that his retarded wife is a pilot? Not that handicapped people can’t do things, but in a future where the average level of intelligence is barely equal to that of a toddler, isn’t that a safety hazard? I wouldn’t even think people would be able to fly anymore. Things would be dropping out of the sky. 

The #1 movie was “Ass”. When Joe wakes up in the year 2505, the #1 movie in America was called “Ass”. It won eight Oscars, including “Best Screenplay”. It was literally 90 minutes of someone’s ass, on the screen. That’s it. Full stop. But people loved it. Because that’s what America had devolved to. Considering some of the movies that have been coming out in the past few years, is “Ass” really that far away? 

The tattoo machine. When they take Joe to get his tattoo, he puts his arm into a hole, and the entire process is automated. This system seems extremely flawed. As is obviously the case, since Joe’s name turns out to be “Not Sure” instead of “Joe Bauers” because he had no idea what was going on. And then he got a permanent tattoo on his wrist of god knows what.  

The IQ test. The aptitude test that Joe takes is ridiculously easy for any average person. But for the simple-minded people of the future, it’s actually quite difficult. As can be seen by the worn-out, multi-shaped blocks that have scrapes and scratches all over them from trying to be shoved unsuccessfully into the wrong holes, over and over again. 

I’m supposed to be getting out. Joe’s escape plan was simple. He just told the guard that he was supposed to be getting out of jail today, and because everybody was so stupid, they didn’t know the difference, and he just left. Keep it simple, stupid… 

Disposable clothes. When Joe gets back to Frito’s place, he needs clothes to change into. Frito points to a literal dispenser on the wall with pre-packaged shirts and pants. It’s like one of those sci-fi movies where everybody is wearing the same uniform. There’s no fashion anymore. They just peel out like paper towels. 

Everything is automatic. Due to the tattoos on people’s wrists, everything is automatic. Laser scanners detect where people are and everything functions without human intervention. Joe is detected in Frito’s car, and the car is shut down electronically and they have to get out before the cops show up. I see a lot of problems with that, because I have errors with my computer all the time and I have to fix them manually. Imagine if the power grid went down and people expected it to fix itself. Probably wouldn’t happen. 

They blow up Frito’s car. The cops show up and blow-up Frito’s car without even checking if anyone is inside. They just start shooting at it. And the explosion draws a crowd of people who start cheering and laughing, and ironically enough, shooting guns up in the air. But who doesn’t like explosions, right? 

“Adult” orders. You can order anything, anywhere in an “adult” version, and it comes with a handjob. The “adult” size latte at Starbucks comes with a handjob. You can get a “full body” combo meal at Carl’s Jr. that obviously, includes a handjob… But that’s one of the main rules in advertising: sex sells. 

Phonetic spelling. Most words are spelled phonetically in the future. Probably because people don’t have the ability to read English anymore. “Prison” eventually became “prizin”. The restaurant “Fudd-Ruckers” eventually became “Butt-Fuckers”, losing what little whit there was to the title to begin with. The sports drink “Brawndo” that goes on to buy almost half the country is spelled exactly like it sounds to avoid any confusion. 

The Washington Monument. When they show Joe going to the White House, they show a brief moment of the Washington Monument in front of the Reflective Pool. There are people jet skiing and swimming in the pool, and the monument itself is tilting to one side. Both of which are a sad state of affairs for our nation’s capital, but I’m sure would happen if people were allowed to continue on their way towards this dystopian future.  

Do you know where the Time Machine is? Joe pulls Frito aside and tries to get him to give Joe directions to the Time Machine. Frito thinks for a second and goes “alright, do you know where the Time Machine is?” And then Joe interrupts him. Now, I can only imagine that if Joe didn’t interrupt him, his next sentence was going to be “just go there…” Because, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? 

It’s got what plants crave. Brawndo, the sports drink that owns half the country, is being used to water the crops, causing an overconcentration of salt in the topsoil and killing off the plants. Joe doesn’t know this. And he when he finds out, convinces everybody to switch over to water. This causes Brawndo stock to plummet, and because Brawndo employs over half the country, it automatically lays off mass amounts of people, causing Joe to become public enemy number one. 

Fox News. Ironically enough, the only news channel that survived into the stupidest of stupid futures is Fox News. Considering the reputation that Fox News has today, that’s not so far-fetched.  

Can you get me over there? Rita is watching Joe on tv, and she suddenly has an idea to save him. She asks Frito if he can get her over there. Meaning, to the stadium that Joe is in. In what is easily one of my favorite parts of the movie, Frito excitedly picks her up and walks her three steps towards the tv and puts her back down. And the look that he gives her like he just accomplished something great is fantastic.  

Joe’s heartfelt speech. Joe gives a heartfelt speech during his rehabilitation to the audience about why they shouldn’t use Brawndo to water the crops and how they shouldn’t kill the one person that’s trying to help them, and even after all that, they still decide to try and kill him. It’s only after Frito finds the crops and Rita puts it up on the big screen that the crowd is convinced that Joe was right and the President pardons him. 

Frito and the cameraman. Frito and the cameraman stop for handjobs at Starbucks on the way to find the crops to save Joe. They get sidetracked easily and forget what they were doing, and just decide “hey, let’s go get handjobs…” I mean, it’s like fast food, I guess. Stop off for a handjob on the way home. “I’m gonna stop off and get gas and a handjob, you need anything?” 

Upgrayedd after the credits. After the credits are done rolling, there’s a scene that shows Upgrayedd, the original Upgrayedd, getting out of a cryogenic tube. He’s apparently found his way into the future to get his money back from Rita… 

So, yeah, go and see Idiocracy. It’s a great movie. One of my favorites. Anything by Mike Judge is always good. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…