IDIOCRACY (2006)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(originally reviewed in 2007)
Luke Wilson is ideally cast as Private Joe Bowers, an Army soldier who works in the library where he has not a single task to perform. The Army fires him from this post and uses him as a guinea pig for a government experiment - he will be kept frozen for a year, along with a prostitute, Rita (Maya Rudolph). They wake up five hundred years into the future, thanks to an Army mishap, and find themselves in a city populated by dunderheaded fools. We see two buildings held together by rope; garbage infesting every square inch of the city thanks to huge, fragile mounds of trash; a White House run by a former wrestler; a Costco that seems as big as the city; cinemas showing films about defecation and flatulence; TV shows where getting kicked in the testes is the biggest highlight; ER's where diagnostic machines provide information, not doctors; Starbucks offering literally more bang for your buck; lasers that read bar codes on people's wrists; and where whining is synonymous with homosexuality.
Some of this is quite amusing, especially the visual gags (the monster trucks at a show loaded with weapons, one of which doesn't quite fit through an entrance). I am more appreciative of the dialogue, some of which sparks with real ingenious situations (people of the future use advertising slogans consistently when they speak, a time machine is not what it seems, etc.). I also love how Joe sees that he is smarter than everyone, to the point that he garners attention from the White House. See, this city needs help. Clearing all the trash is not as important as clean air (clearing the trash might help first and foremost) but it might help if a sports drink isn't held as the healthiest drink (apparently water only comes out of toilets). Since there is no vegetation, Joe knows that water is needed to grow plants, not electrolytes. I also like how Rita, still a prostitute in the future, holds up her customers for several days while milking them for all their cash.
At 84 minutes, "Idiocracy" is almost too short and the finale, monster trucks and Joe hanging from a set of wires, seems too drawn out and anticlimactic. Mike Judge, the creator and writer-director, doesn't sustain the comic edge to really push the film to a more satisfying conclusion. However, Judge knows how to draw insight from the banalities of this future world where all one particular character can say is, "I like money." Money and sex, and breeding like cats, is all that matters (sort of the situation today as well). Advertising and commercial endorsements are part of the English language, and to say the future justice system is a joke is to miss the point - an effeminate quality or seemingly homosexual behavior leads to a guilty charge. How interesting.
"Idiocracy" was barely released in theaters thanks to Fox studios who had no real interest in this smart, subversive satire. Perhaps they saw too much of today's stupidity manifested in the film (or they missed the message about a lack of culture in these trying times). When pop stars like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton take precedence in the media over the war in Iraq, you can then see what Mike Judge is hinting at - pop culture is the culture. Or perhaps the Fox executives are worried that we are already headed in that direction. Either way, "Idiocracy" is a pure, engaging delight that ends too soon to really score a direct hit to the, um, nuts.
No comments:
Post a Comment