In the year 2505, a 90-minute film of someone's butt will win an Oscar. America kills its crops with a Gatorade-esque sports drink (because plants crave electrolytes, right?) Costco awards law degrees. The House of Representatives has long since become the House of Representin'. And a popular newsmagazine is called Hot Naked Chicks & World Report.
That's the dystopian vision of director Mike Judge in Idiocracy, newly released on DVD. He's the man responsible for TV's Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill as well as the cult movie favorite Office Space.
In Idiocracy, the world is so dumbed-down after centuries of devolution that most people can barely tie their shoes. The smartest man alive is Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson), a 2005 Defense Department employee tapped for an experiment in cryogenics. When the project gets scrapped, he's buried beneath a Fuddruckers for 500 years, until an avalanche of garbage dislodges his cryogenic chamber. The movie is darkly funny, although it does have a few flaws: It goes on a little long, it basically has just one joke (Duh, we are dumb.) and the narrator gets a bit annoying.
The film itself almost shared its main character's fate. Last fall, Fox Studios pulled the project before a major theatrical release. But now that the film's unthawed, it may be the smartest comedy until 2505.
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