Nostradamus has got NOTHING on Mike Judge. NOTHING.
Idiocracy is a *supposed* work of fiction by Judge depicting a scenario whereby, due to smart people overthinking there issues, and idiots breeding like rabbits; all smart people die off, leaving only the bottom of the barrel. The film follows Joe and Rita, Joe is in the military and has been selected to undergo a top secret scientific experiment to freeze soldiers in the prime to be used in times of emergency. Joe was specifically chosen due to his total averageness across the board. in every single field from intelligence to physical fitness, he’s average. he’s also a total loner, so noone would care if he dissapeared.
Rita by contrast is a sex worker, who’s been hired in by the army due to a lack of willing female cadets. The pair get frozen only to find that in the interim a mass scandle relating to the lead scientist on the project is uncovered and the experiment gets abandoned…only they forget about Joe and Rita. Who wake up 500 years into the future to a society thats entirely run by the bottom of the barrel, and where intelligence is basically seen as snobby.
And man oh man, if this thing wasnt the canary in the coalmine. I’ve known people cite ‘Idiocracy was supposed to be a warning, not a documentary’ since the early 2010’s at least, but it IS genuinely surprising to see just HOW FAR we as a species have fallen in as little as 20 years.
Indeed, at times, scenes that would have been pure comedy back in 2006, are now eerily honest recreations today. And I find it fascinating.
To keep it brief, I enjoy the work of Mike Judge, this thing has a force of a script behind it, with razor sharp pacing, wickedly dark comedy tones and a deafly dryness to it that’s acidic as it is hilarious. Its playing as a kind of hybrid ‘Beavis and Butthead’/’King of the Hill’ stupid comdey to dry comedy and the contrast is wonderful.
The film still holds up on the direction and cine front, with some wonderfully daft ideas and design choices, this thing has a great styalization that is only now beginning to look a little creaky as CGI advances drastically.
The cast are, PERFECT. PERFECTLY timed, PERFECTLY animated and PERFECTLY in control of the scenes and how to time the punchlines, I honestly dont think it could have been cast better.
‘Idiocracy’ was and continues to be an astounding piece of cinema, a truely scary look into exactly where we’re heading if we continue the backslide down the toilet we’ve been drifting into for the past 30 years.
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