Napoleon Dynamite
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Movie Reviews of Napoleon Dynamite
Movie Review: The Subtle Monotany of a Nerd's Nerd
Summary: 5 Stars
Preliminarily, I had mixed feelings about this movie. First of all, I was skeptical about watching a movie (especially a comedy) with a "PG" rating; this rating struck me as representative of a "children's comedy" which, if anybody agree's, are typically underachieving, and undisputedly appropriate for the audience which the rating merits. Myself knowing a few of the "nerds" during high school, this movie acts as a magnification of reality, but in a way that doesn't seem too overbearing. I would like to go over a few of the elements which I thought maximized the overall motif that the movie was aiming to create: that theme being, perhaps, a mixture of "nice guys finish last" and "save the world, lose the girl" (Napolean saves his metaphorical world without actually losing his flame "deb")
First of all, the perpetuation of Napolean as a stereotypical nerd is a reoccuring element throughout the course of the film. Everybody remembers their high school years with the "nerds"; the implicit construction of Napolean Dynamite as a nerd is by no means conventional. Napolean doesn't need a keyboard and a computer screen to be a nerd. So, if you are expecting a reincarnation of "Revenge of the Nerds", don't be too surprised when viewing "Napolean Dynamite" when quite the opposite is true.
Second of all, the Characters surrounding Napolean Dynamite are all basically characterized in the same way that Napolean is. This is what perhaps adds a little more humor to the movie. Some of the other "Peeps" (not a term actually used in the movie, but somewhat relevant to Napolean's colloquial context) that add the most humor to the film are: Napolean's "sidekick" Pedro, Napolean's unconscious crush Deb, and his (much) older brother Kip. All of these characters have their own little quirks that just seem to place them apart from the crowed and label them as "nerds". My personal favorites were Kip and Pedro. Pedro is so monotanous that he almost begs to audience to put words in his mouth. What was somewhat ironic to me was that he was initially built up as a character who doesn't seem to have very many interests and who appears to be a recluse. However, he quickly turns around and wants to become the class president by the middle of the movie. Kind of a bizarre twist of events and mentalities if you ask me. But then again, this movie didn't make the kind of money it did for it's lack of plot. Which leads me to my next point.
This movie has little to no plot. Don't get too excited Seinfeld fans; this movie has a somewhat weakened plot which is organized just enough so that the viewer doesn't feel the need to turn it off about 5 minutes into it. When I was watching the DVD's extra features, there were a few scenes that were deleted and the express reason (at least what the director's commentary stipulated) was that some of the more descriptive scenes "didn't fit". This leads me to believe that the director(s) didn't really want a plot because a plot, in my opinon at least, would have made this movie too boring. Besides, I think that the monotony and spontaneity from which the "events" transpire is somewhat hilarious in and of itself.
One more thing worth mentioning.... The Music. Simply hilarious, is all I can say. I liked it so much, I downloaded the album from the Itunes store. The best thing about the music is that it is so tacky, and deviant that it contextualizes the movie in a manner that could not be achieved with "conventional" music. The only song that I caught that was conventional was the White Stripe's song that is played at the beginning of the movie. The music almost sounds like something you would hear in a cartoon or videogame from the 80's (I'm assuming that in order to create the ultimate setting, the directors chose this type of music, especially the song that's played during the school dance) The music is corny; but then again, what would you expect from a movie about a bespectacled nerd who draws "Liger's" and fights imaginary metaphysical creatures?
So (in the spirit of Hollywood) here are the overall ratings for the movie (out of 4 stars):
Comedy: ****
Characters: ***
Plot: **
Music: ***
Overall: ***
Yeah, I thought this was a kid's movie at first and that's what initially turned me away from watching it. True, it's not the crude nerd movie that was "Revenge of the Nerds" but I think this is a more scaled down (albeit more exagerated) contextualization of what it's like to not be "popular" at High School. Agreeing with some of the other reviewers, I think that Napolean is the type of nerd other nerd's look down on. Maybe you can look down on him laugh at him too. I and everybody else I know sure got a kick out of the movie.
Movie Review: An independent film you don't have to cut any slack
Summary: 5 Stars
I love independent films, but the truth is that some of them you have to cut a tiny bit of slack due to their lack of resources. But not NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. Seeing this was one of the most delightful, unexpected pleasures that I have had in a movie in a long, long time. Most high school comedies dealing with school nerds are a bit of a cheat, because the nerds are never really as nerdy as the ones we all knew or (or perhaps were) in high school. My favorite TV show is BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, but I could never really buy the ultra-cute Alyson Hannigan as a school nerd. But not so Napoleon Dynamite, his friend Pedro, or Deb, the reserved and shy girl he has a crush on.
No explanation is made of Napoleon's name, but any Elvis Costello fan knows that in the 1980s he declared that he would no longer be known as Elvis Costello, but instead as Napoleon Dynamite, under which name he released what may have been his last great album, BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE. The producers have independently declared that they were unaware of that and chose the name without reference to Elvis Costello. This is, of course, utterly absurd, about as believable as someone making a movie with the lead character named Anna Karenina but claiming to be ignorant that Tolstoy had a character by that name.
The movie depicts the private hell that is the life of Napoleon Dynamite, a hopelessly inept misfit at Preston High School in Idaho, apparently without any friends at all until he stumbles upon a new Hispanic student Pedro, who apparently is incapable of speaking any word with more than one syllable or of smiling (until the very end of the film). Napoleon makes nerds look cool. School is such hell for Napoleon that it seems perfectly normal for one kid as he is walking down the hall to body slam him up against his locker. It isn't just that he is clueless, he is cursed; he not only thinks it is OK to stuff tater tots into his pocket, unwrapped, for snacking on later, it is inevitable that another kid will crush them in his pocket when he refuses to share.
If Napoleon's life is awful at school, it is as bad at home. We are clueless as to the whereabouts or fate of his parents, but his slacker and equally nerdy brother provides neither companionships nor solace, and when his grandmother injures herself in a ATV sand dune accident, his Uncle Rico, a fortyish Peter Pan so desperately yearning for 1982 that he orders a home made time travel machine over the Internet, who is as pathetic in his own way as either Napoleon or his brother Kip.
Plot is not really important in the film; the process of Napoleon's life is. This could easily have been a terrible film, but director Jered Hess (born, by the way, in Preston, Idaho), who co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Jerusha, displays throughout a deft touch at keeping things interesting and funny instead of merely silly. The actors are all excellent, though for the most part near unknowns. I recognized only two performers, one being Diedrich Bader, who has been in a number of roles over the years, perhaps more memorably in OFFICE SPACE as the protagonist's next door neighbor, with whom he would have conversations through the wall. Here he has a hysterical stint as an absurd martial arts instructor. I also knew Tina Majorino, who has been in a number of films over the years, primarily as a child. She does a great job as Deb, though her role (as is Napoleon's) is a bit of a cheat on the audience. They make her up to be as unattractive as possible, when she is, in fact, quite a cutie, as the improved hair-do at the end of the film proves. The cheat with Napoleon is the fact that he . . . well, I won't spoil things. Let's just say that by the end of the film he isn't the helpless nerd we imagine. I especially enjoyed Efren Ramirez as the monosyllabic Pedro. He underplays his role to the point of parody.
I do highly recommend this movie. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE is a thoroughly unique, fun, and funny film, that isn't quite like anything else I've seen. One might say that it is not unlike a male-oriented version of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE set in rural Idaho.
Movie Review: Understated classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Christ, it's hard to spell out what makes "Napolean Dynamite" a great film as so many of it's successes are on a visual scale, but here goes:First of all, several reviewers have attempted to justify Napolean and the other characters as being likable on some level. It's my contention that for a movie to work the primary characters don't have to be likable, just interesting: you could make an entire Star Wars trilogy with Darth Vader as the main character and people would still eat that sh*t up. Napolean is definitely not likable in the sense that you would have wanted him as a playground chum in high school, and neither are most of the characters likable in this sense, but herein lies the genius of the movie: you can watch all these amusingly annoying characters from a distance without the burden of having to interact with them in real life. Everyone out there had someone in school who they thought were interesting in one regard or another, but refused to hang out with them because the other 90% of their personality was out of whack, and it's the same principle with watching Napolean.John Heder's characterization of Napolean has to be commended first and foremost. We're never required to feel sorry for Napolean because he never seems to care too much what anyone thinks; life is merely an endless series of inconveniences rather than humiliations. Perhaps it's this lack of need for empathy that leads some reviewers to dismiss the quality of the film, but personally I feel that a viewer who can only get something out of a movie if he/she can directly relate the characters and events in the movie to their own life is missing out on much, not only in the realm of cinema but most likely the lessons of life in general.If anyone is even more of a geek than Napolean it's his brother Kip, who talks with an effeminate lisp and, at the age of 32, is apparently content to live with his Grandma and talk in chatrooms all day. At this it should be mentioned that the chronology of the film is somewhat confusing: 90% of the visual and plot cues would lead one to believe the films takes place in the 80s -- most of the soundtrack music is from the 80s, Napolean's wardrobe is definitely old school, and the appearance and mannerisms of the auxiliary characters have much in common with teen flicks of the 80s as well -- but here and there are sprinkled references that are decidedly 90s in character -- Kip's use of the internet to hook up with his "soul mate", for instance, as well as a few other key soundtrack tunes. This isn't a crippling defect, however; there is little about "Napolean Dynamite" that strives to be a period piece, and if anything the out-of-touch world of his Idaho surroundings portray an existence that time has, for the most part, simply passed by.Of course, all of this would mean little if the characters were merely left to compete for laughs, but what makes "Napolean Dynamite" work is it's perceptiveness. Yes, many of the characters are stereotypes in a fashion, but high school hallways are filled with stereotypes yet to be fleshed out into distinct human beings, and neither is there an adolescent stereotype omitted nor a false interaction between any of them. All of the characters behave toward each other exactly as you'd expect them to, although it must be said Napolean and the rest of the "geeks" operate on a slightly more unpredictable scale, largely because they are outcasts living in other peoples' world, and it's not their place to shape events but to react to them. The way that Napolean, Pedro, Deb and even Uncle Rico and Kip adapt to their surroundings may not always seem common, but to the extent that their personalities are developed there is never a false movie between them. The film is mostly episodic, necessarily so as it sets up various scenarios and steps back while it's characters react to them, but as there are no dull moments to wade through "Napolean Dynamite" can only be considered a major "flippin'" success.
Movie Review: The New Mormon Cinema Finds Its Poster Boy
Summary: 5 Stars
For the past few years there has been a movement in American film you could call "The New Mormon Cinema." Young Latter-day Saint filmmakers (definitely inspired by the Sundance Film Festival which is held right in their own backyard) have been making inexpensive independent films that are targeted at the Mormon population that stretches in the west from Alberta in Canada down past the Mexican border (the so-called "Mormon Corridor.") Most of these movies have been really bad, cheaply done sit-com influenced "comedies" that have had absolutely no influence on non-Mormon audiences. (With the honorable exeception of Richard Dutcher, the director of good movies like the missionary drama "God's Army" and the thriller "Brigham City.") Things began to change this year with widespread recognition going to the tough-minded World War II drama "Saints and Soldiers" and this twisted little comic masterpiece, "Napoleon Dynamite."
Jared and Jerusha Hess are products of Brigham Young University's film school and they made ND with a bunch of their friends. The unspoken assumption of this film is that most of the kids are Mormons. Some critics who misunderstood the movie as "condescending" have no experience with real people like these. I live in rural Utah and I can testify that Hess is only mildly exaggerating. The critics somehow miss the love with which the characters are drawn, just as some Minnesotans weren't too thrilled with the Coen brothers' "Fargo." Napoleon's pathetic older brother Kip has been singled out as particularly unbelievable. But believe me, Kips are a dime a dozen in Idaho (and Utah, too.)
Napoleon himself is not so much acted as incarnated by Jon Heder, who would win some sort of Oscar if people could only see he was playing a role, not living it. Napoleon is the real nerd deal, not some idealized John-Hughes-style Hollywood version. You really feel the anguish of his life, even as it provokes guilty belly laughs. The genius of the movie is how the Hesses take the angst of Todd Solondz ("Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness") and put their triumphantly uniquely Mormon spin on it.
Hess is the second Mormon director, after Neil LaBute in "The Shape of Things", to make reference to singer Elvis Costello ("Napoleon Dynamite" is one of Costello's aliases.) The movie Napoleon is as physically unprepossessing as Costello is, until he starts to sing. You see, Mormons are always worrying about what other people think of them, because of their long-time outsider status in American society. This overwhelming self-consciousness can make them feel as awkward and crushed by the culture as Napoleon is. But inside they just know they are as dynamic as the very name "Napoleon Dynamite." The opportunity awaits for them to strut their true stuff. An individual like Napoleon can't be destroyed if he doesn't want to be. There's something eternal in him that will win out. The importance of this thought is why the Hesses avoid the very appearance of sentimentality in their presentation of Napoleon. You have to learn to love him in spite of his monstrous imperfections, because he is human. And you rejoice in Napoleon's final dance, which is five or six of the most joyous minutes in a movie this year.
It's also important that Kip and Napoleon redeem themselves by reaching out to others not like them. Kip hilariously to La Fawnduh, and Napoleon to Pedro and Deb. The Hesses are brave enough to make sympathetic jokes about multiculturalism here. Certainly, Preston Idaho, won't save them; but maybe Detroit and Mexico will. I left "Napoleon Dynamite" with genuinely earned good feelings about humanity in general and the future of Mormon movies in particular.
Movie Review: Dynomite!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had a bit of skepticism going into watching this film because of all the praise it had received. Usually those types of movies don't live up to the hype after all. It is true that there are two types of comedy: those that rely more on slapstick humor, and those that are more of a deadpan kind of humor. This movie definitely is the latter, and based on which kind you find more appealing may determine whether this movie is for you. However, as far as being in a class all its own, Napoleon Dynamite definitely deserves that distinction, as it is one of the more refreshing comedies to come out in a long time. It does not rely on nudity, profanity or potty jokes to get its laughs; rather, it uses the oddities of its characters and their unlikely situations.
Napoleon Dynamite, which was made by MTV, is a movie that chronicles the high school life of one geeky teenager (Napoleon), and uses odd characters and situations to gain much of the humor Some notable characters are Pedro (the new kid at school that Napoleon befriends, who eventually decides to run for class president), Napoleon's 32 year old brother Kip (who lives at home with Napoleon and chats online to women) and Uncle Rico (Napoleon's sleazy and macho uncle, who apparently is still living in the 80s). Napoleon is the kind of guy that some may classify as being odd, weird, eccentric, unusual or maybe a little of all of those. His mangy orange hair and monotone voice seem to add to his unusual personality. Both at school and at home he tends to get himself into unusual circumstances and predicaments.
This is one movie that really didn't need a plot, mainly because its strength is its characters and their ridiculous situations. For instance, there is a segment where Kip talks Napoleon into going to a self-defense program called Rex Kwan Do that is hilarious. Rex is a loud, aggressive, obnoxious body builder type who wears a bandana with stars on it, yellow glasses, a polo shirt with his name on it, and work out pants that are red, white and blue. After Kip volunteers to be the guinea pig while Rex demonstrates his methods on him, Rex exclaims boldly to the class of listeners, "No more flying solo! You need someone watching your back at all times!" There is also a funny scene where Pedro runs for class president and Napoleon, who had been practicing dancing, does a solo dance for the class after Pedro's speech.
Uncle Rico's character really stole the show in many respects. After Napoleon's grandmother leaves town for a few days, Uncle Rico comes to watch over Napoleon and his brother. Rico is obsessed with the idea of going back to 1982 so he could relive a high school football game and make the critical pass in a game. He eventually gets Kip to buy a time travel machine online, which, of course, doesn't work. He also invites Kip into a little business endeavor where they are selling items door to door. Eventually Napoleon becomes angry because Uncle Rico is pestering everyone around him, even the girl at school who likes Napoleon, with his business.
Although the movie seems to be stuck in two different time periods, I thought the film was an original idea for a comedy. Far too often comedies have become formulaic and this is one movie that doesn't have a predictable mode to it. Normally these types of odd characters in a film only go so far (as we have seen with many of the Saturday Night Live skit based movies), but Napoleon Dynamite works well, and doesn't try too hard for laughs, which probably gives it more of an appeal. Overall I thought it was hilarious, and would recommend at least giving it a try.