Idiocracy

Mike Judge's Idiocracy starts with a promising concept - an average C21st American is thrown 500 years into the future by a military hibernation experiment to find that, the underclass having outbred the cogniscenti, America's citizenry has degenerated to the mental level of a subnormal 12-year-old. A possibly retired wrestler rules a country in total economic and cultural collapse from a Whitehouse that has somehow been crossed with the Playboy Mansion and the best show on TV is the Jackass-homage "Ow My Balls!". Where this potentially biting satire rather falls down is that the film itself is pitched at the level of a subnormal 15-year-old. I can imagine the creators - and and to give him the benefit of the doubt, some of Mike Judge's other films are exceptional - protesting that this is somehow part of the big joke. I am unconvinced. A send-up of cultural imbecility needs to be pitched a whole lot higher than this to attain credibility.