Idiocracy (2006)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

An IQ of 100 just doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to. I don’t know what it is, but I seem to live in a society dominated by idiots in a figurative sense. Private Joe Bauers finds himself surrounded by idiots in a literal sense. That’s the concept of Idiocracy. The Army wants to do an experiment where they freeze two average people for a year to see what happens.

They take Pvt. Bauers and a prostitute named Rita, both people who have no living family and not to many friends, and cryogenically freeze them. The intent is to wake them up in a year and see how it’s affected them. However, the person in charge of the project is arrested and the base is shut down. (For some reason, no one notices two cryogenics units while the base is being dismantled.)

Fast forward 500 years and we have a world covered in trash and populated by idiots. You see, humans have no competition and, as Darwin once said, evolution doesn’t mean progress. Without any real challenges, humanity has degraded into the dumbest of the dumb. Joe and Rita wake up finding a planet totally different from the one that they left.

It takes Joe a little while to figure out what happened. No one around knows about him or the project or where Rita is. When he sees a newspaper, he thinks it’s a mistake, but it eventually dawns on him that he’s been asleep longer than intended. To make matters worse, he’s arrested and subsequently identified as the smartest person on the planet. His one chance for a pardon is to help save the planet from its problems.

The humor in the movie seems to be targeted towards the high-school and college demographic. (The movie is made by Mike Judge of Beavis and Butt-head fame.) To give you an example, the big show of the far future is called, "Oww! My balls!" It involves a man taking a beating to the aforementioned part of his anatomy. There are also a lot of gags, such as police finding Joe and asking if he’s the unfit mother that a computer had just identified.

The people of Idocracy’s future are extremely dumb. A Gatorade-style sports drink has replaced water in every way except for use in toilets. This results in a famine. The company that makes the drink has taken over several aspects of the government, allowing them to claim whatever they want. They say that plants crave electrolytes, which a normal person of today would see as a lie. Joe has a hard time convincing people otherwise.

The setup is pretty funny. The movie starts to get a little repetitive once Joe and Rita find themselves in the future. Many parts of the movie are funny, but others aren’t. As I said, there are a lot of gags related to how society has gotten worse and that plays out rather quickly. Also, as with many comedies, certain things aren’t explained. For instance, how did the cryogenic units stay powered for 500 years? There are a lot of machines in use, but someone has to build and maintain them. How is this done in a society of idiots?

The movie gets three stars. It‘s worth watching once, but I don’t see a lot of replay value with this movie. The thing I’m left to wonder is how much of it has already come true.

IMDb page

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Have you ever been in a car when someone said that hitting a pedestrian would be worth a certain number of points?  It's gotten to the point where it's ubiquitous.  Most people probably don't even know where that came from.  My brother told me that it came from a movie called Death Race 2000.  He recommended that I watch it.

The movie was released in 1975, but takes place in 2000.  The ‘future' is dystopian, not unlike Mad Max or The Running Man.  Society has degenerated to the point where the big sport is racing.  These are no ordinary races.  Yes, speed counts, but if you hit and kill people along the way, you get points.  A woman might be worth 30.  A child might be worth 40.  Elderly are worth 100 points.  (Early in the movie, there's a newscaster going over the scoring system.)

Death Race 2000 chronicles a cross-country race that serves as the big event.  Five teams (one driver and one navigator) are trying to make their way from the East Coast to the West Coast over the course of three days.  Frankenstein, played by David Carradine, is the big name in this sport.  He's survived a lot of crashes and is said to be more machine than man, now.  He has a rivalry with Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, played by Sylvester Stallone.  (Frankenstein is faster, but Machine Gun Joe is better at scoring.)

As you might expect with a dystopian future, there's a resistance that wants to go back to the way things were.  They don't like the senseless killing.  The resistance is led by Thomasina Paine, a direct descendant of Thomas Paine.  (I've never liked it when a movie feminizes a male name that doesn't normally have a feminine counterpart.  In this case, it seemed like it was done just to reference Thomas Paine.)

The plan is to kidnap Frankenstein and have an impersonator deliver a message on national TV.  (It's not hard to get an impersonator since Frankenstein wears a mask in public.)  To facilitate this, the resistance has put an agent in as Frankenstein's navigator.  When the time comes, Frankenstein gets out of the trap and continues with the race.

Much of the violence was ridiculous and gratuitous.  A hospital has a Mercy Killing Day in which they line up several patients that are apparently beyond hope for the contestants to kill.  Since many are elderly, contestants can score several hundred points easily.  (Frankenstein instead chooses to kill some of the hospital staff.)  In another scene, a group of Frankenstein fans has selected one of its members to be killed by their favorite racer.

The special effects aren't that great.  To say that you can't see the strings is being kind.  There are some backdrops that are fairly obvious if you actually look at them.  (Take the scene where the race is starting.)  Also, the cars apparently couldn't go that fast, so there were several scenes where the footage had to be sped up.  In a few cases, it's fairly obvious.

I think most of what makes it so campy is the writing.  There were a lot of cases where it seemed that the writers weren't trying that hard, as in naming the president Mr. President.   Mr. President, being the not-so-nice guy that he is, likes to blame Europeans for everything.  He blames the French for destroying our economy and our telephone system.  Telephone system?  They couldn't say telecommunications system?

The acting wasn't so bad.  Given the rest of the movie, it fit right in.  Carradine and Stallone were the only two names that I recognized.  (For those that are wondering, I was born in 1976, shortly after the movie was released.)  Overall, the movie deserves three stars.  It's not a great movie, but it's worth watching.  If you can rent it, go for it.  I would almost recommend buying it, as it might be the kind of movie you'd want to watch with your friends. 

IMDb page

Cherry 2000 (1987)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

Warning:  I’m going to give out major details about this movie, including the ending.  If you don’t like spoilers, this isn’t a good review to read before seeing the movie.

In my review of Dune, I started by saying that there were three kinds of movies.  You have movies that are easy to understand, movies that require some explanation, and those where no amount of explanation will help.  This is the third kind of movie.

The movie starts off with a man and what appears to be a woman.   They’re having dinner, although she’s not eating.  After dinner, it turns into a Viagra commercial with the two of them getting busy on the kitchen floor.  I don’t know if it’s carelessness or if the dishwasher is jealous, but the dishwasher overflows and shorts out the woman.  Yes, she’s a sexbot known as the Cherry 2000.

The man’s name is Sam Treadwell.  He takes the Cherry 2000 in to be repaired, but that’s an impossibility.  They haven’t made that model in quite a while, so getting parts is out of the question.  Even replacing her outright is going to be difficult.  On the mechanic’s advice, Sam takes her memory chip and sets off to find a tracker.  The tracker should be able to take him in to The Zone to find an abandoned sexbot factory.

Sam finds and hires Edith Johnson, played by Melanie Griffith.  They have to travel a great distance into The Zone, which is inhabited by lawless hooligans that will shoot at you if you come into their territory.  (No one ever said that getting to or inside the warehouse was going to be easy.)   Edith hooks up with Six-Fingered Jake, who happens to be Edith’s uncle or father or something.  He was said to be dead, but he really just wanted out of the business.  He’s now in to selling toasters.

When they set off to find the factory, they’re attacked.  Sam is taken by the group of local crazies led by Lester.  Sam is told that Edith and Jake are dead, but they were able to tow Edith’s car in.  Sam’s ex, Ginger, is there.  (You don’t understand… She changed her name.  Don’t worry; I don’t understand, either.)  The locals live in what appears to be an abandoned motel or something.  Another thing:  Lester apparently really hates trackers.  He hates them so much that when he discovers that they have one among them, he puts the tracker up against a wall and shoots him with an arrow.

The big form of entertainment with them is the Hokey Pokey.  I have no idea why they do this.  Maybe this was the Most Annoying Song in the World before the Macarena became popular.  I guess that really is what it’s all about.  The group allows Sam to stay, but Sam doesn’t want to stay.  He wants his beloved Cherry back.  Lester mentions having several units, but lacks the chip to make them work.  I don’t know if he’s serious or if he’s just testing Sam.  Either way, Sam decides to torch the place and run when he discovers that Edith and Jake aren’t really dead.

Before they can get to the factory, they meet up with some old friends of Jake and Edith.  Like many old friends in a dystopian future, one of them sells the trio out to Lester, who’s now really out for blood.  Sam and Edith are able to escape by plane, but poor Jake is shot in the back.

Sam and Edith finally find the factory.  Somehow, Edith knows exactly where the factory is, how to get into the factory and where in the factory the sexbots are kept.  It takes a few minutes for Sam to find the exact model he needs.  This is just enough time for Lester and his cronies to show up.  Oh, and Ginger is there, too.  She brought sandwiches.

Sam finds the correct model, inserts the memory chip and is happy to see his Cherry returned to him as if nothing happened.  As they escape, Sam begins to realize what a ditz the Cherry 2000 is.  He thought he knew what love was, but would rather have Edith.  Sam starts to leave with Cherry, but comes back for Edith so that they can ride off into the sunset together.

This is one of those movies that you’ll be left wondering what the f__k just happened, even if you’re paying attention.  I’m really wondering if the writers were using LSD.  The Hokey Pokey scene is just so strange that they had to be on something.

Also, sex is apparently heavily litigated.  When you go into a bar for casual sex, you apparently need a contract and a lawyer to look it over.  (Look out for Laurence Fishburne in this scene.  If you blink, you’ll miss him.)  I’ve heard of being screwed over by lawyers, but this is a bit extreme. The fact that you’d need an oral clause should tell you something.  Between this and Ginger, I can see why Sam is dead set on finding a new Cherry 2000.

It always bothers me when a piece of well-crafted machinery breaks down so easily.  You have a female-looking robot who I’m assuming was made to resemble a woman in every detail.  The Cherry 2000 was supposed to be very good -- they just don’t make them like that any more.  So, why is it that she was done in by soapy water?  Even if this were a possibility, why would someone who loves said robot be so careless as to ignore the dishwasher?  You’d think that Sam would realize that Cherry’s about to bite the dust and do something to save her.  I know that this is why we have a movie in the first place, but he could have made an effort.

Speaking of reasons why we have a movie, why is it that the item in question is always so hard to get?  Either it’s in a remote part of the country that has roving bands of rabid idiots or it’s heavily guarded in Fort Knox.  If it seems easy, that’s because the target item isn’t really there.  It was moved someplace or destroyed.  It’s never that easy.

This is a hard movie to recommend.  It’s not at all good.  It looked to me like the producers had to remove entire scenes to make the movie come in under time and/or budget, giving it a rushed and disjointed feeling.  However, it’s not so bad that I’d recommend watching it to see how bad it is.  Yes, it’s listed on badmovies.org.  Yes, it deserves to be listed there.  I’m just not sure I can recommend wasting your time on it.  This truly is a movie that will leave you wondering why.

IMDb page

Cherry 2000 Trailer (1987)