Idiocracy
How does this film not work? From Mike Judge, the co-writer/director of the cult sensation “Office Space,” comes a futuristic comedy- long-delayed by 20th Century Fox, who dumped it unceremoniously in theatres on September 1- with a hilarious premise and a strong leading man in funnyman Luke Wilson (the straight man to whackier brother Owen). Judge’s premise is priceless (if somewhat derived from “Futurama”)- Wilson plays an average joe soldier named Joe who is picked for this government experiment to freeze two people- the second is a prostitute named Rita- for a year. Well, through circumstances I’d rather let the film explain (’cause they are kind of funny, as is the opening prologue), Joe and Rita are frozen for 500 years, only to wake up in 2505 in a society overrun by stupidity, where they’re two of the smartest- correction, the smartest- people on the planet.
OK, here’s how this film doesn’t work. For one thing, the comedy- what little there really is- comes completely from the situation, not from the characters, who are so shallow in their development (to call them stereotypes is kind of insulting to stereotypes) that you have little or no reason to care for them whatsoever. The film’s obvious low-budget isn’t a disadvantage per se (certainly not in the casting, where all the actors do what they can in their roles), but this film really does look slapped together despite being originally slated for the same time LAST year. It’s like Judge knew what he wanted to do, but lacks the experience (and the support of the studio) to pull it off; maybe a Kevin Smith or Ivan Reitman- to name a couple- could have made this premise fly to comic heights. It doesn’t help though that after the future world is established, Judge looks more for gag opportunities than he does try and develop an actual story- being a TV vet with his co-creation “King of the Hill” (Hell, even “Bevis and Butthead” was sharper than this) and in making a film as beloved as “Office Space” (which had the makings of a good comedy- with sharp characters, commentary, and comedy- in every form that “Idiocracy” lacks), the man should know better. As a result, a brief 84 minute film feels drawn out beyond its’ welcome, and seems to stretch when it does try and accomplish something other than low-IQ wit masquerading as social commentary. And OK, it’s not the same as “Futurama”- where civilization did advance and frozen boy Fry is still a lower-intelligence being- but seriously, Matt Groening and co. did this kind of idea better in 22 minutes (thinking especially of the episode “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid”), which, if this had been a short film (well, shorter film), maybe it might have worked as this sort of sketch comedy. Still, in the end, you can’t help but ask with a proven talent like Mike Judge- “How does this film NOT work?”
