Darwin's theory of natural selection, survival of the fittest, doesn't work when a species has no natural predators. Smart people think before having sex and therefore have few children; stupid people don't and have many children. If this keeps up, the human race will be nothing but idiots.
Such is the premise of Idiocracy, the new live-action comedic movie directed by Mike Judge (of Beavis and Butt-head and Office Space fame). By the year 2505, all humans will be unable to make intelligent decisions. The economy will be in ruin; crop fields will be barren; ever-growing garbage dumps will avalanche; the most popular television series will be a reality show about a guy getting hit in the crotch by various objects; the most popular movie will be Ass, which is nothing but a close-up of just that (and will go on to win 8 Oscars); the people will speak in a mix of hillbilly, valley girl and urban slang and the President of the United States will be a professional wrestler and porn star.
But there is hope. Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson), an army librarian who has done nothing with his life, and Rita (Maya Rudolph), a prostitute; guinea pigs in a forgotten 2005 military suspended animation experiment; are knocked out of their hibernation chambers during a garbage avalanche. They are of average intelligence by today's standards, but they're the smartest people alive in 2505.
Joe, thinking he has been in suspended animation for only a year and unable to get answers from the local population because all they do is mock the gay (read: proper) way in which he speaks, goes to a hospital assuming he is hallucinating.
A hospital receptionist, with the help of push-buttons with pictograms on them, directs Joe to a doctor. Discovering that the weekly porno magazine in the doctor's office and his hospital bill are both dated 2505, he soon realizes when he is and that he is not hallucinating. The doctor, basing his analysis on the way Bowers speaks, disagrees and panics and has Joe Bowers arrested when he (the doctor) finds out he (Joe Bowers) has no bar code on his arm. Joe's court-appointed lawyer, Frito (Dax Shepard), doesn't understand that he is supposed to defend his client and takes side with the prosecution so Bowers is convicted and goes to jail.
Rita has better luck than Joe. The people of the future, being stupid, always want sex and are always willing to pay for it. She is able to use the temptation of sex to get money out of them (without ever having sex). Still, she doesn't like the future.
Joe escapes from prison by using his wits--he tells a prison guard that he's served his term. He finds Rita and has Frito direct them to the time machine in the local Costco. Frito knows the layout of this Costco well; it's where he went to law school.
Joe is caught again before he and Rita make it to the time machine. Instead of going to jail, he is sent to the White House where U.S. President Camacho (Terry Crews) appoints him Secretary of the Interior. It turns out Joe received, by far, the highest score on the I.Q. test in history. In a speech that would fit in well at a professional wrestling match, the President tells the American people that Joe will fix the economy, have crops grow in the fields and rid the country of its now tumbling garbage in a week.
Of course Joe doesn't know how to solve any of these problems. He doesn't know what the Secretary of the Interior does; he's never even voted. Fearing retribution, Joe claims he will go after the crop problem first so he can get outside in hope of reaching the time machine at Costco. Here, Joe discovers fields are irrigated not with water, but with a sports drink--it has electrolytes; plants crave electrolytes. Joe knows how to solve this problem.
After multiple failed attempts to explain to the rest of the President's Cabinet that plants do not crave electrolytes and need water to grow, Joe tells the Cabinet that he can talk to plants and they say they want water. The plants get their water (from toilets), but doing so makes almost everyone unemployed as the computer that runs the sports drink company--which employs the majority of Americans--lays off almost everyone after sales and its share price plummet, all before a single plant sprouts out of the ground.
Joe is sentenced to one day of rehabilitation: a combination of monster truck combat and wrestling. He is given a small, flimsy car with a limp, rubber phallus-like object blocking his view. His three opponents have armored trucks with large drills and guns, and their muscles are bigger than his own.
Describing any more of Idiocracy would spoil it.
A movie like this can easily lapse into an everyone whose opinion differs from my own is an idiot or I'm more cynical than you vibe. Idiocracy, fortunately, does not. There is social commentary, but it is never preachy. Idiocracy is comedy mocking stupid people and the things they like. It does this well. You will laugh at the stupid characters for their stupidity and for them laughing at stupid things.
That is, if you can find a theater playing Idiocracy. It is a limited release that has recevied little publicity so it probably will not expand.