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IDIOCRACY ****
Directed by Mike Judge. Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Sara Rue 15 cert

The half-hearted domestic release of Mike Judge's bracingly broad satire on America's willing descent into mass stupidity sparked some rubbing of chins among conspiracy theorists last year.

Was 20th Century Fox, which snuck the film out in a handful of cinemas, before deciding not to release it at all in the UK and Ireland, demonstrating its fear of offending the many corporate partners ridiculed in the film? Perhaps, but it seems more likely that the studio was concerned about allowing Judge, creator of the timeless Beavis and Butthead, to point his finger too aggressively at the American public.

The picture - consistently hilarious, if never exactly subtle - sees Luke Wilson's amiable dope transported into the future to discover a nation reduced to barbarism by centuries of unthinking indolence. The top TV show is called Ow! My Balls! Starbucks offers manual relief with its coffee.

Shrill as Idiocracy often is, its message remains sobering: if this comes to pass, we will have only ourselves to blame. DC