Oh, the 'Idiocracy'!

The positive reviews astound me. I really wanted to like it. I liked Office Space, Beavis and Butthead, etc. and I was all prepared to see smart satire on the growing idiocy of American culture, and condemn Fox for dumping it. What I got was an occasionally funny, mostly poorly made, ugly movie that not is not only meandering, but submits to so many cliched plot turns, that I all I could think of after the movie was "Why didn't anyone tell Mike Judge that he was making something terrible?" The premise for the movie could inspire a funny satire, but when you load it with uglyness (on display in the still), from the wardrobe to the set design, to the way the characters look, you're not making a comically horrific future, so much as a 90 minute eye-sore.

I'm not even sure what I saw was Judge's cut, but even if it wasn't, there's little you could salvage from the movie to make any kind of coherent, funny movie.

It's probably best it got burried, and I hope Judge has gotten all this crappieness out of his system.

I've seen it. It has some funny material, but it appears to have been a painfully, painfully underfunded production; it looks like they filmed what they could then tied the rest together with a voice-over narrator. I've been meaning to write something about it, but it seems unfair to review pieces of a movie.

Houston was one of the cities, so I was able to see the movie a few nights ago. And though I found the movie amusing, most of the satire was pointed at fairly obvious targets. I certainly never felt implicated (except maybe at the beginning, since my wife and I have decided not to have children). The movie allowed me to laugh at "them" without ever pointing the finger at myself. Still, I laughed. But I wonder if the way this movie was dumped by the studio will cause many to overpraise it. The movie allows its audience to feel superior to all the idiots out there, and praising the movie allows one to feel superior to the stupid execs and marketers at the studio.

I saw “Idiocracy�? opening weekend in Dallas. It was enjoyable, but seemed very rough and very uneven. There were parts that really made me laugh and others that made me groan. Overall I thought it was better than a lot of movies currently being distributed, however it owes a lot to its premise. I walked out of the theater (which consisted of less than 10 people), thinking that this movie could have been so much more.

I had read Judge was forced to re-shoot a lot of material. I keep wondering how much better or worse would the movie have been without the re-shooting.

Maya Rudolph was very stunning. I had never really found her attractive before, but now I’m eagerly looking forward to her next role.

None of the reasons that have been thrown around as to why Fox just dumped this movie makes any sense.

1) They don’t know how to market it.
They slap from the creator of “Beavis and Butthead�?, “King of the Hill�?, and “Office Space�? and a couple of funny lines from the movie and they’re done.

2) The Corporations that Judge lampoons are forcing Fox to pull it.
They most have agreed at some point. Even if they changed their mind it looks like that would create an opportunity for marketing. “The movie Starbucks doesn’t want you to see�?.

3) It’s a marketing ploy to drive DVD sales
“Idiocracy�? might not have been huge at the box office, but why throw away that money for the hopes that it may increase DVD sales.

I saw it (and now I wish I'd saved my ticket stub!), and while I liked it a lot, I agree with the above posters that it plays as a better IDEA for a movie than as a finished product. The art direction is stunning, on a par with, say, "Sleeper" in creating an entire, cohesive, even plausible future world. It seems all the better considering the budget constraints that must have been in operation.

I agree with Dennis that the performances are spot-on, especially Dax Shepherd as our "guide" to what daily life must be like in the idiotic future. The guy never strikes a wrong note - he's fully committed to the reality of Frito's daily existence, and it's amazing to watch. Rudolph and Wilson, for their part, are both great, though their roles essentially reduce them to one puzzled reaction after another.

That said, Judge never does pull all of his ideas together into a coherent whole - but at the same time, I have to wonder how much of that unevenness is due to the drastic cutting and re-cutting, and all the levels of interference from the studios and corporations. From the interview I read, Mike Judge comes off as too nice, or polite, a guy to fight effectively for his vision, which is a real pity. Because the original vision DOES show through here, even through the sad mess that's being (kinda) "released," and it's on a par with the dangerous vision of "Brazil."

This is beginning to remind me a lot of what almost happened to "Brazil," before Terry Gilliam (miraculously) was able to get his movie shown and appreciated in its original form. The studio seems to have succeeded here on both counts where they failed with "Brazil" - they've been able to successfully bury the movie, AND get it cut beyond recognition.

Maybe I'm missing something but I thought Idiocracy was fantastic. I can see how they could improve on it (the narration was a little strange) but I think it's the most entertaining movie I've seen this year.
It's got a heaping helping of dumb humor for sure but I think that's kind of the point and I don't understand how you can discredit a movie that expressly states that it is dumb for being dumb. Luke Wilson was hilarious, Maya Rudolph was passable and even Dax Shepherd did a good job. I really can't wait to see it again.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the synopsis is the same as the classic 1951 science fiction story by C.M. Kornbluth, "The Marching Morons."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

Does Judge's film mention the connection?

Hilarious movie, even more so in that it has generated some really dumb reviews on Rotten Tomatoes!
The premise is that Natural Selection is no longer working and that dumb people, (ie those not in the Urban Upper Middle Class) are out breeding the UUMC's so that in 500 years time, everybody is a moron. Conceptually complete garbage, but the movie runs with it very well. The Reviewers though often aren't very bright themselves, and 'documentary', 'likely scenario' etc are fairly common descriptions. Many of them explicitly BELIEVE this premise is accurate! That is fundamental to understanding this movie. It isn't obviously. Do you really think Evolution would have stopped after 4 billion years, just to make way for UUMC social snobbery? Intelligence is not hereditary and it certainly is not the prerogative of the UUMC. The underlying irony is that these people are lower breeders and they may well be the real losers in Natural Selection terms because their focus on careers and money over procreation is... well simply an aberrant behaviour that is of no longterm value! One Reviewer says this is an 'elitist' movie. That's correct. It's an elitist premise that the UUMC's are the intellect of our society, and without them, everything would fall apart cos everybody else is stupid. Because this concept is so flawed, it's expansion in this movie, is too crudely ludicrous and transparently snobbish even for our pseudo intellectual UUMC's, as it appears from many of the Reviews! That may answer the much asked question 'Why did Fox not promote this movie?' Because it's audience demographic is very uncertain, the elitism of its premise attracts the UUMC and alienates it at the same time with the depiction of the crude consequences! To us non UUMC ie- social low life scum that have the brains not to ape worthless UUMC values, the movie is a brilliant piece of double bluff. Rare indeed between the Scylla and Charybdis of Hollywood drivel, and pretentious Independent irrelevance of most contemporary cinema.