In Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy, the future is a lot dumber than it is currently. People in fact, are quite dumb. The premise is that those people who are dumber than average are reproducing much quicker than the smarter people. Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) accidentally goes into the future to see that humanity is being destroyed by stupidity. He is forced to help out when they discover that he is the smartest person in the world. Hilarity ensues.
Story/Writing: When I'm drinking I like to argue that the world is heading towards an Idiocracy future or a Gattaca future. While this isn't necessarily part of my best drunken argument repertoire, such as my propensity to argue that the best show on television ever was Seinfeld. Which is blatantly obvious, in my opinion. Nevertheless, Idiocracy isn't a perfect story but it simply paints the picture that the future may not be all that it is cracked up to be. Or to quote Southland Tales, "the future is going to be more futuristic, then originally thought." In most movies and books, the future is always painted to be this perfect utopia or just at least smarter than the present. Grade: 8/10.
Characters: The various characters in the movie were pretty hilarious. They were over the top stupid. Which understandably has rubbed people the wrong way, but the main characters Joe and Rita (Maya Rudolph) were not perfect or even close to it. Joe Bauers was going to be a tough character to pull off, regardless, but I think it could have been done better. It's hard to fault the writers too much for Bauers. Grade: 8/10.
Directing: Not an expert but the jokes were spot on. Further, all of the little things that happened in the movie just added to the hilarity. I particularly enjoyed the cars just driving straight off the bridge, the name changes, the product placements, etc. Mike Judge is hilarious. Grade: 10/10.
Suspension of disbelief: Once you get past the part that you're unsure of how Private Bauers and Rita had enough food and water to survive in their comatose state for hundreds of years. You also have to get past the part of whether the world would really get this stupid or not. If you can't get past that, you're not going to enjoy the movie. It took awhile to get past the first part. The second part wasn't as hard to get past. Grade: 8/10.
Acting: Let's get this out of the way right here. I'm not a fan of Luke Wilson. I didn't think Luke Wilson was particularly good in this movie, in Old School, in the cell phone commercials where he's fat, etc. I didn't think he was very good in this movie, either. In part, I guess, it's because I didn't like the characters. Maya Rudolph was ok, nothing spectacular. Dax Shepard was hilarious. Terry Crews was good. Justin Long provided me with lots and lots of laughs. His scene was my favorite. It doesn't matter if all the minor characters are fantastic if the major ones were nothing to talk about. Grade: 5/10.
Dialogue: If you buy the premise, then the dialogue is spot on. I bought into the premise and thought the dialogue was fantastic. Grade: 10/10.
Genre specific: I've been a fan of all of Mike Judge's movies, so it's hard for me to be objective. I thought it was hilarious. Grade: 10/10.
Timing: My girlfriend does not enjoy the last twenty minutes of the movie, saying that it moves too slow. I tend to agree with her on this point, the last couple parts of the movie kind of drag. That being said, the comedic timing of the rest of the movie is great and the first 45-50 minutes of the movie fly by. How much do I dock for the last twenty minutes? Grade: 7/10.
Pseudo-philosophical/theme: The theme of the movie I guess is to avoid stupidity try reading a damn book once in a while. Also to smart people- have unprotected sex more often.
The real theme I would say is that we are getting dumber. We need to correct this. Otherwise this is going to happen.
It's just a hilarious public service announcement.
Grade: 6/10 (I agree with the theme just I wish there was something more to it. I couldn't find it).
Re-watchability: Of course, I would watch this again. I watch it a lot. Just ask my friends.
Score: 10/10
Final Score: 82/100
No comments:
Post a Comment