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Idiocracy

Idiocracy (2006)

tomatometer

73

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 41
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 11

Idiocracy delivers the hilarity and biting satire that could only come from Mike Judge.

67

Average Rating: 5.4/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 2

Idiocracy delivers the hilarity and biting satire that could only come from Mike Judge.

audience

57

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 58,815

My Rating

Movie Info

Mike Judge wrote and directed this offbeat sci-fi comedy which gives a new meaning to the expression "people are getting dumber all the time." In 2005, Pvt. Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) is a soldier chosen to take part in a secret military scientific experiment in which he will be put into induced hibernation for one year, along with a woman named Rita (Maya Rudolph). Bowers is chosen for the assignment because he is statistically the most average man in the Army, while Rita is a hooker ordered to

Jan 9, 2007

$0.3M

20th Century Fox

Cast

All Critics (41) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (13) | DVD (23)

If the world is going to hell in any number of handbaskets -- as Judge so acutely demonstrates that it is -- you might as well hitch a ride in his.

May 7, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The movie is bracing for its bile but ultimately more frustrating than funny.

October 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (5)
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Judge has a gift for delivering brutal satire in the trappings of low comedy and for making heroes out of ordinary people whose humanity makes them suspect in a world where every inch of space, including mental, is mediated.

September 5, 2006 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Often stingingly funny -- and an undeserving resident of the summer's-end movie dumping ground.

September 5, 2006 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Ow! My brain!

September 2, 2006 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | Comments (3)
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Mike Judge's Idiocracy is absolutely a satire for its time. What Judge is less sure of here than in his previous, perfectly pitched live-action comedy Office Space, is how to build a complete movie around his key ideas.

September 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This demented look at destructive mass consumption barely approaches feature length. Still, Mike Judge dots each appealingly cheap scene with spastic sight gags and offers fiendishly hilarious, frighteningly plausible examples of cultural decay.

September 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com | Comment
Suite101.com

Vulgar satire manages to be both stupid and smart.

December 15, 2009 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

Even if some of the gags about dumb people start becoming tiresome, it's linked to a sensation of discomfort that should make us legitimately worry about the direction we're headed in.

August 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

So-so attempt at revisiting Sleeper. Unfortunately Mike Judge is no Woody Allen, nor is Woody Allen himself nowadays.

November 8, 2007 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | Comment (1)
rec.arts.movies.reviews

You have to love a movie that imagines a dystopic future in which the U.S. President is a former wrestler and porn star named Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

November 5, 2007 Full Review Source: Projection Booth | Comment
Projection Booth

I look forward to a time when I can safely laugh at Idiocracy, but that time may not come any time soon.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

It's a movie now, but in ten years it will be a historical documentary...

September 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment (1)
Cinema Crazed

A superb bit of satiric high-concept that Judge mines proficiently for laughs.

March 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Idiocracy is an unabashedly elitist film that includes fart jokes.

January 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Cinematical | Comments (2)
Cinematical

Politically correct? Not even close. Hilarious? Undeniably.

January 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk

An intermittently amusing -- and sometimes lazy -- satire that plays like a so-so episode of Futurama.

January 18, 2007 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | Comment (1)
Lessons of Darkness

Idiocracy's utter lack of promotion is now something of a minor legend, and it remains perplexing given the film's obvious charms.

January 16, 2007 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You | Comment
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

A cautionary, sci-fi comedy which envisions a miserable dystopia half a millenia in the future where humanity has degenerated instead of advanced.

January 12, 2007 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

A caustic, comical commentary on the prospects of a culture inclined to pander to the lowest common denominator.

January 12, 2007 Comment
Insight News

We may look back at this film in 500 years and realize that Mike Judge was better able to predict the future than Arthur C. Clarke did with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

January 11, 2007 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures | Comments (4)
7M Pictures

Forget the fact that you've never heard of this movie. It's one of the funniest movies of 2006.

January 11, 2007 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com | Comment

...seems more like 'Selected Scenes from 'Idiocracy'' than it does an actual film. Still, there are some genuine laughs to be had here, and Judge's vision of a future dominated entirely by morons is memorably bizarre.

January 11, 2007 Full Review Source: Kalamazoo Gazette | Comment
Kalamazoo Gazette

Mike Judge's follow-up to Office Space successfully entertains even when aiming for the lowest common denominator.

January 11, 2007 Full Review Source: Trades | Comment
Trades
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Idiocracy

A brilliant concept in need of a better movie. Idiocracy isn't bad - it's got some genuinely funny moments, and I also respect Luke Wilson a lot more than I used to (he's always been a poor-man's version of Owen Wilson to me). But the movie slowly devolves from great, genuine satire into foolish nonsense, as if the

March 4, 2012
Sam Barnett

Super Reviewer

While it's not much funnier than any other comedy, Idiocracy features quality comedic performances from Wilson and Shepard, who manage to entertain us through 90 minutes of idiocy. Ultimately, though, the film isn't much more than a mildly-funny diversion.

December 26, 2011
rjayhutchinson

Super Reviewer

    1. Guy at Costco: Welcome to Costco, I love you.
    – Submitted by Carl M (3 months ago)
    1. Frito: For the smartest guy in the world you're pretty dumb sometimes.
    – Submitted by Dan P (5 months ago)
    1. Narrator: The number one movie was called: Ass. And that's all it was for 90 mins. It won eight oscars that year including best screenplay.
    – Submitted by Dan P (5 months ago)
    1. Pvt. Joe Bauers: Man, I could really go for a Starbucks, y'know?
    2. Frito: I don't really think we have time for a handjob, Joe.
    – Submitted by Brianna E (5 months ago)
    1. Narrator: As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.
    – Submitted by Brianna E (5 months ago)

Latest News for Idiocracy

August 31, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Crank" Is Well-Ranked; "Illusionist" Is Magic, "Crossover" Is An Air-Ball, "Wicker Man" Gets Burned
This week at the movies, we've got hoopsters with big dreams ("Crossover," starring...

August 30, 2006:
"Crank," Wicker Man," "Idiocracy" Won't Be Screened For Critics -- Guess The Tomatometer!
The studios have been hiding movies from those pesky scribes all year long, but this time they've...

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