PlatKat.com: Idiocracy, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Idiocracy, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I had been wanting to see the movie, Idiocracy, since I was first aware of the concept: A futuristic world of people too stupid to recognize the relation between action and consequence, due to the irresponsible sexual practices of our uneducated lower class. Sounds like a movie I'd make, if I had venture capital, movie mogul friends, and you know, three pounds of fairy dust up my ass.

Anyway, I may be wrong, and being a woman of the future, I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think some of this movie may have been filmed in/near Austin when I was living there. I'm pretty sure director Mike Judge actually hosted a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse. (I miss you, Alamo! *single tear*)

Since I hate fads and crowds, I stayed away, and I moved to New York instead because there's none of that bullshit here. I also heard through the grapevine (okay, I looked that up) that one of my coworkers at the time was an extra in the movie. I didn't really like seeing him around the office back in the day, so it would be counterintuitive to spend time, effort, and money to see him in a movie (however fleeting his role), wouldn't it?

Yes. So I recently caught the flick when it came on Cinemax, which I sometimes watch in the daytime even though the porn isn't on yet. I was a little surprised that it didn't feel like I was watching a major motion picture. It was more like an art/philosophy student project with a big budget.

The story is sound enough: A man and a woman are forced 500 years in the future as the result of an army experiment gone wrong. They give the audience a "normal" point of view in a world where everything is dumbed down, corporate sponsored, super-sized, gratuitously violent, and at times, just pathetic. Their goal is to find a time machine, so they can go back to their own time period. Even though the existence of this device was verified only by their witless companion, Frito, I was willing to suspend my belief with the understanding that our hapless heroes needed some hope to leave that global debacle.

I had to think harder about this. I'm quite the pessimistic movie-goer ("Hey! A car could never jump a gorge that wide in real life!"), I can't just dismiss the whole movie because of some ingrained sour grapes defense mechanism. There are things about it that actually suck. What are they? Here:

There seems to be a total disconnect between the characters and their motives. The biggest contradiction is Maya Rudolph's character, Rita, a lowbrow whore with an IQ to match. Breaking it down further:

1. Rita endures the ongoing struggle of seeking out her pimp, Upgrayedd [sic] even though it is clear she is 500 years in the future and has bigger problems, i.e. surviving. I guess it was supposed to lend itself to humorous banter, but it didn't.

2. She joins Luke Wilson's character, Joe, in attempts to find the time machine and go home, even though she shares much of mentality and values of the time. In fact, she has it good in the future. In the past, she was a whore with a pimp. In the future, she turned tricks herself, and by "turned" I mean "took money from without having sex with". Her clients of the future were too dumb to remember how the rest of the transaction was supposed to go. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.

3. It's hard to believe the racially mixed beauty of SNL fame is really a dumb prostitute. It could be her poor acting, or maybe she was just miscast. Either way, watching Maya try to play a street-wise prostitute is like watching everyone's favorite pale-faced trainwreck, Buckwild from Flavor of Love try to be herself. Did clicking that link hurt? I know it did.

I had some problems with Luke Wilson as Joe as well, but they were fewer. The largest being his continuing obliviousness about Rita's career as a hooker. Earlier in the movie, she tells him she's a painter to put an end to his small talk (admirable), but the script carries it on through the whole movie. Gah! Get over it! Not funny!

Despite Joe's tendency toward cluelessness, he is made President (of the US? the World? who knows?) and what is funny is the circular coversation he has with his cabinet about why you can't water the crops with an energy drink.

"But it's what plants crave," argue the cabinet members, repeating the slogan of the fictitous Brawndo, a drink all too similar to present-day Gatorade.

"It doesn't matter if that's what they crave, it's not what they need," says Joe.

"But Brawndo has electrolytes," they insist.

"Do you even know what electrolytes are?" he responds.

Thank you!

I looked for this convo in its entirety on YouTube and couldn't find it, but I'll admit that it's almost worth watching the movie. There are hoards of people today who feel nutritionally educated simply because they're able to regurgitate phrases of a credible-sounding advertisement. I get frustrated listening to people's stupid ideas about how their bodies work, and I'm not even a nutritionist. I can't imagine how annoyed they must be, bless their souls. (And once again, may we all keep our diets as private as we should keep our religions.)

There were a few other shining moments like that one, but silly quotables do not a movie make. And sadder still, I felt like I was watching something that had been made before.

Idiocracy was heavily reminiscent of the Futurama episode where some giant brains invade Earth and make everyone stupid. Being a simple half-hour with little to no plot holes (and also a cartoon), the episode was better executed than this movie.

The quirky cinematic elements of the movie very much resembled The Fifth Element. The two main commonalities between the two movies are a) the attention to minor details in order to give a truer "futuristic" perception (shiny clothes, goofy cars, etc.) at the expense of an overall coherent viewing experience and b) the token outlandish and flamboyant black president. Although I liked the premise of Idiocracy more, I'd rather watch The Fifth Element.

But the ending of Idiocracy can't be beat. Instead of being quick and cute (Futurama) or virtually forgettable (The Fifth Element), this movie ends with a big "Fuck you." As it turns out, the "Time Masheen" our main characters seek is just a kiddie ride at an old amusement park. Joe and Rita are forced to stay in the future forever and attempt to breed some brains back into the population. I'm not sure if Judge meant it to be a happy ending; to me, it pretty much punctuated the idea that we're fucked.

Now I'm sure you're wondering, what of the former coworker I dreaded to see? Was it annoying to watch him make a stunning appearance as "Hospital Patient #5"?

Nah... It turns out you can't even see his face. There's an opening shot in which I think I can identify him, but from the p.o.v. I got, he's still a dime a dozen.

"I can see why [name] is in this movie," I told my viewing companion. "All the extras had to be fat and ugly."

"And stupid," she added.

"Yes, extremely stupid," I agreed.

posted by platkat @ 4:52 PM