Idiocracy serves as a social satire that touches on issues including anti-intellectualism, commercialism, consumerism, dysgenics, voluntary childlessness, and overpopulation.

[1] In 2005, United States 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 due to societal expectations, discouraging well-educated individuals from having children as the less-educated reproduce indiscriminately; genetic engineering is forgone in favor of hair loss and erectile dysfunction treatments.

Joe 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.

At the Extreme Court, Joe is sentenced to public execution in a monster truck demolition derby against undefeated rehabilitation officer Beef Supreme.

H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine postulates a society of humans who have devolved due to leaving the work to others, while the "Epsilon-minus Semi-Morons" of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World have been intentionally bred to provide a low-grade workforce.

[18][19][20] Time's Joel Stein wrote "the film's ads and trailers tested atrociously", but, "still, abandoning Idiocracy seems particularly unjust, since Judge has made a lot of money for Fox.

"[19] In The New York Times, Dan Mitchell argued that Fox might be shying away from the cautionary tale about low-intelligence dysgenics because the company did not want to offend either its viewers or potential advertisers portrayed negatively in the film.

In a 2018 interview with GQ Magazine, he talked of advertisers being unhappy at the way they were portrayed, which affected the studio's efforts to promote the movie.

He said, "The rumor was, because we used real corporations in our comedy (I mean, Starbucks was giving hand jobs) these companies gave us their name thinking they were gonna get 'pumped up', and then we're like, 'Welcome to Costco, we love you' [delivered in monotone].

[22] In 2017, Judge told The New York Times that the film's lack of marketing and wide release was the result of negative test screenings.

The website's "Critics Consensus" for the film reads, "Frustratingly uneven yet enjoyable overall, Idiocracy skewers society's devolution with an amiably goofy yet deceptively barbed wit.

[27] Los Angeles Times reviewer Carina Chocano described it as "spot on" satire and a "pitch-black, bleakly hilarious vision of an American future", although the "plot, naturally, is silly and not exactly bound by logic.

"[28] In an Entertainment Weekly review,[13] Joshua Rich gave the film an "EW Grade" of "D", stating that "Mike Judge implores us to reflect on a future in which Britney and K-Fed are like the new Adam and Eve.

Club's Nathan Rabin found Luke Wilson "perfectly cast ... as a quintessential everyman"; and wrote of the film "Like so much superior science fiction, Idiocracy uses a fantastical future to comment on a present. ...

In August 2012, Crews said he was in talks with director Judge and Fox over a possible Idiocracy spin-off featuring his President Camacho character, initially conceived as a web series.

[36] Crews later told Business Insider that the ads would not go forward as planned, but that they would have featured Camacho wrestling in a cage match against the other candidates.