In 2005, Army librarian Joe Bauers, played by Maya Rudolph, was chosen for a government experiment in suspended animation due to being classified as the most average individual in the military. The army needed a female counterpart for the experiment and decided to recruit Rita, who was freed from her situation with the help of financial incentives paid to her pimp, Upgrayedd. Unfortunately, a scandal involving the supervising officer and Upgrayedd led to the shutdown of the military base where Joe and Rita were hibernating, resulting in the indefinite halting of the experiment.
Over the course of the next five hundred years, the average intelligence of society declined dramatically as educated individuals opted not to have children while those with lesser education levels reproduced without constraint. Genetic engineering lost its priority, falling behind trivial matters like treatments for hair loss and erectile dysfunction, which led to a deterioration of infrastructure. Culture devolved into a realm of lowbrow humor and rampant consumerism.
Fast forward five centuries, when a garbage avalanche disturbs Joe's hibernation chamber, awakening him in Frito Pendejo’s apartment, portrayed by Luke Wilson, in a now derelict Washington, D.C. Confused and seeking help, Joe quickly realizes that his articulate demeanor was at odds with the surrounding anti-intellectual society. When he visits a hospital, believing he's enduring some sort of hallucination, he studies a magazine and his hospital bill, only to learn the true year. Soon after, he finds himself arrested at a fast-food chain, Carl's Jr., for not having a barcode tattoo, marking him as an outsider. Frito, guaranteeing a defense for Joe in court, wrongly claims that Joe wrecked his apartment. The judge, perceiving Joe's refined voice and mannerisms, finds him guilty and imprisons him. Meanwhile, Rita returns to her profession.
In the correctional facility, a mix-up with the identification machine leads to Joe being listed as "Not Sure", and he ends up taking a simplified aptitude test. Playing a stroke of luck, Joe inadvertently informs a guard about his imaginary sentence completion, enabling his escape from prison. He approaches Frito once more, who promises to assist Joe in finding a time machine, purportedly hidden within a vast Costco store. However, during their adventurous escapade, Joe gets nabbed upon scanning his barcode.
Brought to the White House, he meets President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, portrayed by an unnamed actor, who recognizes Joe’s unusual aptitude test results and appoints him as secretary of the interior. Camacho boldly announces that Joe will resolve agricultural issues, including a stagnant economy, within a week or face incarceration. During a trip with Rita into a barren farmland, Frito presents Joe with a mysterious map that he suggests leads to the time machine, unaware that this simple jaunt will unravel an array of chaotic events that threaten their already crumbled society.
As they discover that crops are being irrigated with Brawndo—a sports drink wielding inexplicable influence over governmental functions—they uncover a malicious scheme aimed at ruining the soil and generating catastrophic dust storms. In their battle against advisors using convoluted arguments to undermine Joe's vision, he eventually convinces Camacho to switch irrigation from Brawndo to water, leading to unforeseen reverberations: Brawndo’s bankruptcy sparks widespread riots when immediate crop improvements fail to occur.
Tension escalates at the Extreme Court, where Joe faces a public execution via a monster truck demolition derby against the daunting Beef Supreme. However, Rita and Frito clutch onto critical evidence that Joe's proposal for water irrigation has produced significant crop revival. Seizing the moment, Rita announces this revelation on the Jumbotron, prompting President Camacho to pardon Joe.
In reflecting on his remarkable journey, Joe discovers that Frito had always been aware that the supposedly time-traveling machine was simply an amusement ride. Following these wild events, Joe ascends to the presidency, marries Rita, and together they nurture three exceptionally bright children, all while Frito—now vice president—raises a staggering 32 "not-so-bright" kids, ironically illustrating the complexities of education and societal influence. Joe and Rita's children are hailed as the "three smartest kids in the world", standing in stark contrast to their counterparts, a testament to the essentiality of water and the insidious grip of Brawndo.
