Bad movies I love part 17.

I signed up for the Blockbuster version of Netflix and so far I'm actually impressed with the service. Yesterday I received Little Miss Sunshine, From Here to Eternity, and Idiocracy in the mail.

Most of you probably haven't heard of Idiocracy, and sadly some of you never knew From Here to Eternity exists either, but I must recommend Mike Judge's (Office Space, Beavis and Butthead) latest film.

An average slacker of a man played by Luke Wilson is set in a hibernation chamber only to awake 500 years later. Instead of finding a future that rivals one that Buck Rogers found, his character is immersed in a world that has seen the population's collective intelligence deteriorate. He discovers after a few hundred years of only stupid people populating the planet with equally dumb children that he arises to be the smartest person on Earth.

While the movie is indeed full of laughs at the expense of the mildly retarded it does make some subtle if not obvious stabs at contemporary society's love affair with consumerism and how we seem to equate advertising slogans with gospel. Sadly this movie doesn't have the poignant observations about contemporary life like Office Space, but still this movie has it's merits. It won't become the cult classic that was Judge's previous film, probably because there was no red stapler in the script, but still this play upon reverse Darwinism entertains.

Even though I obviously enjoyed the film I hardly slept last night thinking that the movie may be our Oracle at Delphi. With films like Norbit topping the box office while Idiocracy getting almost no theatrical run I think Judge's vision is soon upon us.

"Judge has a gift for delivering brutal satire in the trappings of low comedy and for making heroes out of ordinary people whose humanity makes them suspect in a world where every inch of space, including mental, is mediated." - Carina Chocano

The first few minutes of Idiocracy: