A Stupid Concept

I recently decided to take a chance on the probably-not-going-to-be-very-good movie Idiocracy. My love of Office Space continues to earn writer-director Mike Judge a little goodwill every now and then, and this movie was the latest beneficiary.

As you'd expect, the movie is no Office Space (though it does include several of the same actors in its cast). And honestly, you spend too much of its slim 85 minutes not laughing. But when the laughs do come? Well, I have to confess, I found it fairly funny.

Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph star as modern day schmoes left abandoned in a government "deep freeze" project that sees them thawed out over 500 years in the future. And the future's so not bright, the two are easily the most intelligent people on the planet. Hilarity sometimes ensues.

There's a strange "meta" level to some of the humor. The movie is stuffed with quite a few truly juvenile jokes, but is winking at you while presenting them, thanks to the conceit of the movie. "See? Look how dumb this stuff is?" I don't claim this makes the movie profound, but it is humorously subversive about the sorts of things that tend to become popular in pop culture.

Perhaps that short run time is really as it should be. The movie gets in, delivers a few laughs, and then gets back out before it can wear out either its welcome or the fairly thin premise. I'd rate it a B-, which puts it about on par with another Mike Judge effort, Extract. If you like one, I'd wager you'll like the other.