I wanted to like it - I really did. Several of my friends and family are fans, but it just didn’t do it for me. The phrase “stupefyingly unfunny” springs to mind. Should I try again? Does it get any better?
I wasn’t rolling on the floor either, but I thought it was pretty funny.
I could relate to it mainly because I could identify with the high school “loser group” concept. I found his romantic endeavours particularly amusing. 
I liked it, but if you didn’t like the first fifteen minutes, you probably won’t like the rest of it. It’s really just a study of some quirky characters and if you don’t like them you won’t enjoy the movie.
Short answer: No, you shouldn’t, and no, it doesn’t.
Long answer: The first fifteen minutes are pretty much a good indication of the rest of the movie, so if you didn’t like them, you probably won’t like the rest of it. I personally couldn’t find anything redeeming, endearing, or sympathetic about any of the characters, and didn’t find it funny in the least. I wonder if it may be an age thing, and I just missed the boat, but overall I just didn’t like it.
You might also be tripped up by the lack of a strong overarching plot. Stuff just kind of happens.
I would like to state for the record that I did not intentionally plagiarize madmonk; those eerily similar comments are simply stuck in my mind as part of the lexicon of public… er… phrases.
Nice try, but we’re still going to seize all royalties that you have earned from the publication of this post. And you can forget about your precious book deal!
My lawyers have been notified, pack your things and prepare to leave Harvard
I actually enjoyed the movie, but I didn’t love it. I don’t think trying to go beyond the first 15 minutes will increase your enjoyment.
Of the small comedies in the last few years I really found surprisingly funny, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castles was the one that had me laughing hard and often.
Most of the other recent comedies, especially anything with Ben Stiller have disappointed me time and again.
Jim
I saw it in the theatre on opening week when there was no hype around it yet and thought it was great. That was almost 2 years ago. Since then there has been such overkill of quotes on top of quotes and merchandising up the wazo that I think if I was seeing it for the first time today I wouldn’t think much of it.
I think everyone ruined it for you.
Who wants to see Napoleon say “whatever I feel like I wanna do Gosh!” when everybody has been saying it over and over for the past two years.
My sister loves it. Even sent me a vid clip of her doing some “sweet jumps” today on her mountain bike. Since she left me her copy of the dvd, I’ve started watching it at least three times, and usually completely lose interest in it after 10-15 mins, even when tipsy. But, I do admit some scenes cracked me up, ND throwing the action figure out the bus window, him working on his tetherball skills, hehe. I guess I’ll pop it in later tonight and give it another shot.
Napoleon Dynamite is a terrible, terrible movie, and the public’s obsession with it during the height of its popularity only made me more disgusted. Unlikeable and annoying characters, pretentious dialog, a script that has “desperately hoping to be the next cult movie” written all over it…the film is not funny and not entertaining.
I thought the first ten to fifteen minutes pretty boring, but then as he met “the girl”, Pedro, his shyster uncle (or whatever), and things started happening that it turned into an actual movie. It does maintain a slow pace and just flitting back and forth between the characters, but personally that wasn’t an issue for me, just that nothing was happening in the first fifteen minutes except following a dude around who wasn’t doing much.
The first time around ND was discussed here, somebody said that it seemed like the kind of movie which was less fun to sit through than it was to talk about the next day.
That’s how it was for me.
It did seem to be self-consciously trying to be a cult movie.
But to some degree, it did succeed. The time machine was pretty funny.
There has been at least one other thread on this movie, in which a variety of opinions were expressed, but a substantial number of people agreed with you that it was “stupefyingly unfunny,” and a substantial number of others found it fairly funny but not nearly enough so to live up to all the hype. I haven’t seen it myself, and people whose opinions I trust have told me that they found it bad and unfunny.
I’m with you. I hated it. I received it for Christmas and felt compelled to finish it, but it was painful.
I asked folks here to help me say something good about it so that I wouldn’t hurt the couple’s feelings. Some of the responses were quite funny
To answer your question, No, it does not get any better.
I love this movie, but I can’t really defend it, since many of the reasons I enjoy it are the same reasons other people dislike it. Strange and eccentric characters – check. Slow pacing and nothing resembling a standard plot or resolution – check. Painfully stupid dialog – check.
It’s a classic! 
I watched it for a half hour and then gave up. It was not funny. Not once. All my friends thought it was hilarious and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t stand it. I don’t like most movies, anyway, but supposedly this was the kind of flick that even I would enjoy.
NP more than any movie I have ever seen is an “aquired taste”. The question you may have is the same question I have when people tell me beer is an aquired taste…If you don’t like it at first then why do you keep doing it? In my case I hated it at first but it seemed wherever I went my friends had it on, so a lot of the gags began to grow on me.
When you start to find the characters funny then you start to see the bigger picture, you begin to find everything funny like the fact that this backwards town is obviously stuck in a time warp ( being from the south I have been to many such towns). Even as you swear you hate it you slowly start quoting the film (“how could anyone even know that?”) and then finally against your will you find you are actually enjoying the movie…And you find it charming…ack!
So no it doesn’t get “better” after the first 15 minutes and I certainly wouldn’t blame you If you didn’t want to suffer through it, but if you did you may discover what all the craze was about. Just as a note though you do have to throw out all of your preconceived notions about what a movie should be…Like it having…a plot…
Humor is entirely subjective and personal. There exists no joke, story, or movie that every single person will find equally amusing.
A couple of days ago, I showed a good friend a few minutes of “Wonder Showzen.” I think it’s brilliantly hysterical. His only comment: “Is this supposed to be funny?”
So don’t sweat it.