Napoleon Dynamite
Also reviewed by:
Uncle Cliff
I fucking hate Napoleon Dynamite. Actually let me clarify, I really dislike and have no interest in the film Napoleon Dynamite. What I fucking hate is how everyone tells me how awesome it is. All these people who I respect and listen to, all of them telling me I have to check this film out, "Have you seen this film? Oh, it’s hilarious." All these people I didn’t realize were absolute morons with terrible taste. What I hate is that everyone else loves Napoleon Dynamite. And it is Sheee-it. Absolute. A fucking nothing.
What I hate is that this film deserves none of the praise it gets.
To me, the film is a nothing, b-grade comedy section nothing film. File it next to anything with Yahoo Serious in it. It has no story, no character arc, no well set up or established moments. It is just a random collection of half-assed scenes and jokes that don’t quite work, the main comedic element being that the main character Napoleon is tall, tucks his t-shirt into his happy pants, and has an afro of red hair. And he talks funny and closes his eyes sometimes. Hilarious. The filmmakers have obviously decided that what they were going for is a ‘cool’ arthouse comedy. They’ve set about doing this by creating jokes that are deliberately not worked through or developed. He throws an action figure out of the school bus with a string attached to it’s leg. Kinda’ funny, let’s wait and see what comes of it. Oh, nothing. NOT FUNNY. Then they shove in heaps of references to the late eighties, so all the twenty-somethings will be so glossed over with nostalgia, they’ll be prepared to laugh almost out of instinct. The production designers also use lot o' brite colours for the stupids in the audience (if you were a stupid that last line would sound completely fine in your head).
Some morons have told me that I simply do not get Napoleon Dynamite. But there is nothing to get. If someone said you didn’t get Mulholland Drive I’d nod my head and concede the point, but Napoleon Dynamite? There is nothing there to understand. A farmer shoots a cow in front of a school bus full of kids. He has a pet Llama and… wait for it… he FEEDS it. He draws pictures that are shit and he thinks they are good. Oh, man, these are just some of the classic recurring jokes of the film. And also, he has a brother who is a skinny white nerd who meets girls on the internet. They’ve done it again. There is no in-depth subplot to this film. There is nothing else below the surface. There’s not even a story ON the surface. So what’s not to get? It’s shit, end of story.
So the film starts with some dipshit in a mid-west town. Then he goes to school. Meets a foreign speaking kid. They hang out. Then in the climax he fucking dances (one of the most painful three minutes of bullshit ever put on film). That is it. Instead of Napoleon Dynamite, go to any fucking high school in the local area and ask the nerdiest kid you can find if you can watch what he does for a week. Maybe you’ll get arrested, but that will still be better than watching this fucking film. Yes that’s right, being made into someone’s bitch in a prison cell is better than having to watch Napoleon Fucking Dynamite. The people who praise this film are try-hard film students or wannabe artists who’ve never done anything with their ‘talent’. Because somehow this film endears them and makes them want to like it, makes them want to pretend they get the film on a deeper level than the common comedy. Wake up fuckwits, there is no deeper level, it’s just nerds in op-shop clothing and a guy taping himself throwing a football.
A Better script than Napoleon Dynamite:
Scene One: The Pitch
J5 walks into EXEC’s office.
EXEC:
I hear you’ve written a script? Is it better than Napoleon Dynamite?
J5:
(cringes when he hears Napoleon Dynamite)
Fuck yes, check this out.
J5 hands EXEC a piece of toilet paper.
EXEC:
This appears to be square of toilet paper. Used.
J5:
Read on.
EXEC:
Oh, you’ve written on it, it says ‘1990’ above the smear, and you’ve put pretty colours around the sides. My friend, this IS better than Napoleon Dynamite, we’re in business.
And we fucking SHAKE HANDS.
I fucking hate Napoleon Dynamite. I would have turned it off half way through had I not been told how awesome it was by several friends. So I waited. But the awesome never came. Instead it just got worse, like having diarrhea on a twelve hour plane flight. This film should never be watched by anybody, ever.