Idiocracy

A lot of things in this futuristic satire are more theoretically funny than actually funny (though it does have some laugh-out-loud moments) but a lot of that is because it seems to have been cut by the studio to better appeal to exactly the idiots it's mocking. Many situations aren't allowed to develop, there's obvious overdubbing of expository material, and worst of all a narrator explains EVERYTHING (most of which needs no explanation), probably because some preview audience didn't understand what was going on. In other words, a movie about dumbing down has been... you guessed it.

One hopes that a longer, better version of this comedy will eventually surface on DVD, and it will become the cult fave it deserves to be, but even in this mutilated and somewhat comic- spirit-diminished form it's one of the more memorable films of the year-- a screech of disgust against our culture and all the ways it's become trashified, stupidified and uglified in the name of appealing to the yahoos. I watched it right after Land of the Dead, George Romero's latest milking of the single idea that consumers = zombies, which is basically the same point Judge is making; yet where Romero's counterculture viewpoint (now zombies = underclass that needs to revolt against the rich) seems hopelessly out of date, Judge's take is fresh, dead-on and far more disturbing. Just listen to the yahoos in your movie audience whooping it up for President Camacho's State of the Union just like their counterparts on screen, and you'll know that we're all doomed.