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Idiocracy

2006 · 84 min · movie
⭐ 6.5 (217,458 votes)
Comedy Sci-Fi Adventure

A case study demonstrates how individuals with lower IQ scores and incomes reproduce at greater rates than the more affluent and intelligent, reducing future humanity's average intelligence.

In 2005, US Army librarian Joe Bauers is selected for a government suspended animation experiment as the most average individual in the armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute, Rita, by dismissing charges against her and paying off her pimp, Upgrayedd. A scandal involving the officer overseeing the initiative and Upgrayedd forces the closure of the military base under which Joe and Rita were placed in hibernation, suspending the project indefinitely. Over the next five hundred years, average intelligence decreases. As a result, infrastructure deteriorates, low comedy and vulgarity define culture, and consumerism is left unfettered.

Five hundred years later, a garbage avalanche disturbs Joe and Rita's hibernation chambers. Joe awakens in Frito Pendejo's apartment in previously occupied DC. Asking for help, he is laughed at by the residents, who speak a mixture of "hillbilly, Valley Girl, inner-city slang, and various grunts." He enters a hospital, believing the army administered hallucinogenic drugs to him. Joe realizes the year upon reading a magazine and his hospital bill, but he is arrested at Carl's Jr. for not having a bar code tattoo and being unable to pay his bill. Joe is sent to trial; Frito represents him but alleges that he destroyed his apartment. The judge perceives Joe’s accent to have a homosexual demeanor, finding him guilty and sentencing him to prison. Rita resumes her job as a prostitute.

Joe is sent to a correctional facility, where a faulty ID machine registers his name as "Not Sure" and takes a simplified aptitude test. He escapes from prison after deceiving a guard by saying he had served his sentence and was scheduled for release. Joe visits Frito, who agrees to guide him to a time machine —located within a large Costco store—after Joe promises to create a savings account in Frito's name when he returns to the 21st century, earning him billions in compound interest. Rita, Joe, and Frito enter the store, but Joe is arrested after his bar code is scanned. He is taken to the White House and appointed secretary of the interior by President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho due to extraordinary performance on the aptitude test. In an address, Camacho states that Joe will resolve unfruitful crop yields, dust storms, and a stagnant economy, among other issues, within a week or face imprisonment.

Joe and Rita visit a crop field. Frito gives him a useless map to the time machine. Joe discovers that the country's crops are being watered with Brawndo, a sports drink whose parent company owns the FDA, the HHS, and the FCC; the concentration of electrolytes in Brawndo has destroyed natural topsoil, causing dust storms. Despite opposition to his plan in the form of circular reasoning from the Cabinet, Joe convinces Camacho to use water instead of Brawndo in irrigation. Consequently, Brawndo stocks severely depreciate, leaving half the country's citizens unemployed and Brawndo filing for bankruptcy, inciting riots as immediate improvement to the crops did not materialize.

At the Extreme Court, Joe is sentenced to public execution in a monster truck demolition derby against undefeated rehabilitation officer Beef Supreme. Rita and Frito discover that Joe's reintroduction of water to the soil allowed crops to grow. Rita pays a cameraman to broadcast the crops on the stadium's Jumbotron, prompting Camacho to grant Joe a presidential pardon. After discovering that the time machine is just an amusement ride, Joe becomes president and marries Rita, with whom he has "the three smartest kids in the world". Frito is appointed as the vice-president, and with 8 wives, he ultimately begets "32 of the dumbest children to ever walk on Earth". The narrator states that while Joe did not single-handedly save mankind, he did set in motion the chain of events that eventually undid humanity's "dumbing-down".

Directed by

Mike Judge

Starring

Maya Rudolph
Luke Wilson
Dax Shepard
Terry Crews
Andrew Wilson
Brad Jordan
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