Mike Judge’s follow-up to “Office Space” mixes in some “Beavis and Butthead” to create a a biting satire about modern culture. It stars Luke Wilson. It sat on a shelf at Fox for two years before debuting this month in a very limited release.
Carina Chocano, LA Times: Idiocracy: “What does Mike Judge have to do to get a movie released and marketed? He could stop making satires as merciless and spot-on as this one, for one thing. His second film in seven years, “Idiocracy,” was completed nearly two years ago and dumped on Friday, reviewless and unmarketed, in six markets not including New York and San Francisco. (Because who could possibly be interested in the long-awaited movie by the director of “Office Space” there?)”
Nathan Rabin, The Onion A.V. Club: Idiocracy: “In Beavis And Butt-head, that devolution is just suggested; in Idiocracy, it’s made dizzyingly literal. A perfectly cast Luke Wilson stars as a quintessential everyman who hibernates for centuries and wakes up in a society so degraded by insipid popular culture, crass consumerism, and rampant anti-intellectualism that he qualifies as the smartest man in the world. Corporations cater even more unashamedly to the primal needs of the lowest common denominator—Starbucks now traffics in handjobs as well as lattes—and the English language has devolved into a hilarious patois of hillbilly, Ebonics, and slang.”
Edward Havens, FilmJerk.com: Idiocracy “Like many of the greatest cinematic comedies, “Idiocracy” is a lean machine, clocking in at a mere 83 minutes. It sets up its premise succinctly and gets right into the story, flooring the acceleration right from the get-go and never looking back until the very end. Not a moment is wasted. Everything that happens on the screen is there for a reason, every joke set up to payoff two or three more down the road.”
Reviews are generally positive (currently 75% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes.)