"If you do manage to reach the moment of pure stupidity, you'll actually never know it."

Not very well crafted and more tongue-in-cheek and preachy than lighthearted, but it offers some interesting ideas from some interesting people (Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher).

A funny documentary that explores the meaning of something that defines our society as a whole

A mediocre comedy that tries to define stupidity, searches for the lowest common denominator, reviews the history of stupidity and the topic of intellegence, and the implications for the media and politics. Not bad it just wasn't what I was expecting... (read more) A mediocre comedy that tries to define stupidity, searches for the lowest common denominator, reviews the history of stupidity and the topic of intellegence, and the implications for the media and politics. Not bad it just wasn't what I was expecting.

This documentary tries to define stupidity, searches for the lowest common denominator, reviews the history of research on the topic of intelligence and discusses the implications for media and politics. In general, the contents is of uneven auditor... (read more) This documentary tries to define stupidity, searches for the lowest common denominator, reviews the history of research on the topic of intelligence and discusses the implications for media and politics. In general, the contents is of uneven auditory, visual, informative and conceptual quality. Although the definition effort and the search for the lowest common denominator are sometimes amusing, they are not particularly useful and do not qualify as facts. Also, I think that the historical part misses some of the main points about intelligence testing and research. What makes this documentary worthwhile is the last part when issues about media and politics are presented but, still, it is by no means a thorough discussion on the subject.

It's a good thing the makers of this film declared themselves "idiots"€ at the very beginning of the movie. It saved me from making the comment myself. It would be easy to brand this film "stupid", but I think it goes way beyond that label. It ... (read more) It's a good thing the makers of this film declared themselves "idiots"€ at the very beginning of the movie. It saved me from making the comment myself. It would be easy to brand this film "stupid", but I think it goes way beyond that label. It is lazy, inept and insulting. I actually hated this film enough to write this review. I didn'€™t feel this insulted after watching Transformers,€ that'€™s how annoyed I am at this movie.
Can I just say how tired I am of "œdocumentaries" using canned footage from old propaganda films from the '€˜40s and '€˜50s. You know the footage I'm talking about: scenes in black and white where they show you how things worked in the good old days, when things were simple, and the American dream was a smiling paradise. Women frolicked in their dresses and men wore suits and fedoras. Am I the only one tired of filmmakers splicing this stuff into their movies to show us a foil to their insipid points? To show us that our grandparent's generation was ruled in naivety and now these new filmmakers can show us the truth on how the really real world works? This stuff was okay when Mike Moore did it in "Roger & Me", but just because its public domain (meaning "€œfree footage"€) shouldn't mean you're hip or ironic when you use it.
The filmmakers spend a lot of time explaining the definition of several words -- like "€œmoron"€ and "€œidiot"€ (they seem to take great delight in asking people on the street about these words' origins) -- but seem to have failed to figure out what the word "documentary"€ is. In most definitions of the word, it contains the word "œfactual"€ or "non-fiction." You'€™re supposed to making your thesis by presenting us your audience with non-biased facts or imagery to support your claim. Thus, editing in footage of your colleagues staring moronically at a camera with bad haircuts and fake snaggle teeth to support the claim may be against the tradition. Doing it over and over and over and over again is just tiring. Doing it twelve more times after that is just trying to fill time to make it past the feature film mark. And here's the bad part. In a section where the filmmakers decide to go off on how dumbed down our media has become, instead of getting snippets of actual TV shows to support their claim, they include self-made footage parodying these shows in the lowest common denominator, using the aforementioned fake snaggle teeth. Thanks for letting us make up our own minds, guys. Thanks for speaking down to us.
And while I'™m talking about the media bashing part of the film, the filmmakers inform us that the world of news has just become an onslaught of 30 second sound bites with no real conversation about the subject matter that'€™s being discussed. Can'€™t argue with that, but guess what? This entire movie is an onslaught of 10 - 30 second sound bites from all of their experts with no real dialogue or discussion on what stupidity is or what its real effects are.
I could go on for another hour counting the ways this movie sucks (footage of people tripping isn'€™t stupidity, those are called accidents, guys; showing some guy running naked on an ice-rink is not that interesting to repeat seven times sporadically throughout 90 minutes; placing shitty lightning effects over a guy talking about special effects movies isn'€™t funny or ironic -- its a waste of human spirit) but I think I'™m about done here.
Fellow film goers, just avoid this thing. It's not clever or funny. It'€™s a waste of Canadian tax incentives. And Donald Sutherland (who narrated this mess). And electricity. To those who green-lit "Stupidity," try to find a subject that actually has a subject next time. Or filmmakers that actually have a clue to what they are doing.