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Idiocracy
By Sheri Linden
In his various "Beavis and Butt-Head" projects and "Office Space," Mike Judge has proved himself a keen-eyed observer of the ascendancy of mediocrity. His second live-action feature, "Idiocracy," is often stingingly funny -- and an undeserving resident of the summer's-end movie dumping ground. Perhaps the incisive satire cuts too close to home, with its dystopian vision of a world peopled by inarticulate, TV-addicted dolts who eagerly throw themselves under any and every set of corporate wheels that steamroll toward them. Perhaps low test-screening results reflect the very dumbing down the film laments. ...
Luke Wilson brings a perfect blinking blandness to the film's unlikely hero, Joe Bauers, a soldier the military chooses for its Human Hibernation Project. Remarkable only for how unwaveringly average he is, Joe hits the median on every chart and eagerly submits himself to a yearlong deep freeze. His fellow experiment subject and potential mate is prostitute Rita (an occasionally funny, bimbo-tough Maya Rudolph).
As fate and short attention span would have it, the Army base conducting the test closes amid scandal, soon to be replaced by a Fuddruckers. With the scientific community focused on more pressing matters of hair loss and penile dysfunction, Joe and Rita are forgotten for 500 years, until the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505 releases them from their coffin-like chambers into a world of raging stupidity. Barcode-tattooed citizens subsist on buckets o' fat while watching the Masturbation Network, the Violence Channel or, in a bold bit of reverse product placement, the Fox News Network, whose anchors are wrestling-circuit celebs. The president (a very funny Terry Alan Crews) is a former porn star and smackdown champ.
In a world where language has degenerated into grunting, monosyllabic profanity, Joe's use of grammatical sentences marks him as "faggy." It also makes him the smartest man on the planet, enlisted by President Camacho and his sharp-as-marbles cabinet to save the country from its crop and French fries crises.
... "Idiocracy" hits the bull's-eye with its portrayal of a brand-obsessed USA, where Costco is a city unto itself and the supreme value is market share. ...
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Carl