I couldn’t get into this movie either. My husband loves it (then again, he watches Super Troopers over and over again, so there’s no accounting for taste). I did, however, find that it was like watching a car crash - I knew I didn’t want to watch it but found myself still glued to it. Just couldn’t bring myself to hit the eject button on the dvd player.
Bingo.
I doubt it, since I seem to remember (from the one time I met you) that we’re about the same age, and I loved it. 
Seems to me like a lot of people either love this movie or hate it. My 7th graders badgered me until I saw it; I didn’t want to b/c of all the hype. However, I laughed my ass off and thought it was one of the funniest movies the year it came out. I think it helps to have a juvenile sense of humor, no need for a linear, concise plot, and a high tolerance for the bizarre antics of the ubernerdy. I have all of those things, so I loved it. YMMV.
What Cervaise said.
I watched this last summer because my American friends forced me to. It was mostly just one huge HUH? for me. Half the fun I got from it was watching it with my friends. I watched it again a few months ago with another friend and I actually liked it better the second time around. It’s definitely a movie you should watch with a bunch of other people.
Ugh, how gratifying it would be to pound the snot out of Napolean Dynamite. While I did find some of it funny the first time, and did enjoy more of the movie the second (and last) time I saw it, my absolute favorite part is when the normal guy pushed/threw Napolean into the lockers.
Exquisitely gratifying, that bit.
I’m one of those who love it. Perhaps it has a little to do with the fact that I lived in Salt Lake City for a while, and knew quite a few people from Idaho, and know a lot of Mormons who totally fit the stereotypes in the movie. I knew far too many Summer Wheatleys, for example. So that was part of the fun for me.
But yeah, I love the movie. Watch it when I need a good giggle. Etc.
Oops–forgot to add that my sister, who also lived in Utah, etc., totally hated the movie. So it also probably has quite a bit to do with one’s sense of humor. I have that type; she doesn’t. No big.
This is a very good answer! I came to be a casual fan the same way - rented it, hated it, dismissed it. But it kept being the only thing showing when I wanted the TV on for background company while I worked, and, over time, I came to like it. I like it enough to actively watch it, although I never got to the quoting phrase. And “charming” is actually a pretty good description, to my estimation.
I grew up in Idaho/Utah and there were many cultural references that made the movie (for me) very clever. Not saying that dislike of the film would be due to not understanding some of the references, but it was rather powerful (in a nerdish way) to see my culture so well represented.
I like it a lot, even now, but you make a good point about the oversaturation.
I think the movie deserves praise, but not necessarily cult status. Put it this way: the writer, the director and the cast are all to be commended for so perfectly recreating what could easily be mistaken for home video. (If you don’t think that’s a good thing, okay, but it is not easy, is my point.) But when people quote the movie, I don’t feel a kindred spirit with them the way I do when someone quotes Holy Grail or South Park. HG and SP are outlandish, so finding a quote appropriate to a real-life situation requires wit. ND is funny because it’s so very mundane, so responding to “What are you going to do?” with “Whatever I feel like – GOSH!” doesn’t require any thought.
Just wearing a Vote For Pedro shirt does not make someone quirky. Quirky is like chic: someone who’s chic is ahead of the curve, not just in fashion but in overall demeanor, and someone who’s quirky truly has their own drummer, in that they don’t even realize they don’t conform. One cannot be chic only on Saturday night, and one cannot purchase quirkiness at Hot Topic. And the irony that many of the people wearing those shirts are the same people who, if they went to Napoleon’s school, would be the ones slamming him into lockers, does not escape me.
Anyway, I liked it for what it was. Basically, they had me from the opening credit sequence.
I’ve seen it once, and enjoyed it.
I like to describe the as one giant awkward pause. Which, I think is a fascinating thing to watch.
I thought it was great. I think people that like Beavis & Butthead (that’s me) would probably like this movie.
It was painfully awkward and very funny throughout.
I would further say don’t see this movie expecting to learn something (except maybe how the “lower half” lives) or see something epic. It’s plain, it’s mundane, it’s realistic in many ways. Sort of like Seinfeld, there’s no big message, just quirky people getting through everyday life.
I agree. I thought this movie was totally unfunny the first time I saw it and was trying way too hard to be quirky. But then, I was watching it alone, which always makes movies less funny. The second time I saw it I watched it with a group of people who are huge fans and it was one of the funniest things I saw in months. All the other people laughing around you gets you in the mood and makes you like the movie more.
So yeah… if you (the OP) do try to watch it again watch it with someone else, preferably someone who’s seen the movie. I still don’t think it’s the funniest movie ever but it definitely has some great lines. I’d like to see it again and I’ve already seen it twice, and I’m not a big movie rewatcher.
I loved it! The things that made it so enjoyable were the fact that it was taking place in 2004 yet the music, the clothes, the hair was all 80’s. My god, the Trapper Keeper alone made me snerf my beverage.
It’s seeing the humor in the mundane that made it so hysterical to me. That coupled with the odd humanity of the characters. Uncle Rico being sort of innocently slimey, his obsession with his almost football career, the fact that Grandma had a llama, and better yet, Grandma got injured in a dune buggy accident. It’s just so cheesy. But one thing it was not, was sophmoric. It was a refreshing step away from the likes of movies like Dude Wheres My Car.
A one joke movie- if you like the joke, you will of course like the movie. If you don’t like the joke, you will hate the movie. I’m in the latter camp. Also thought the ghetto girl liking the dweeb to be the most unbeliveable pairing in the history of film. Not gonna happen.
I like the movie, but I don’t enjoy it.
It is a brutal and unapologetic look at American small town life. Most of the people that I know who love it, don’t even get that Napoleon is really poor. Basically ND is The Water Boy, but honest about things.
I rather liked it for some reason. I guress it’s because I can indentify somewhat with ND, a wierd guy doesn’t have many friends. That and it’s wierd but strangely interesting.
I like, totally had a Trapper Keeper in the 80’s. Those things were cool.
This is an interesting point. I think the movie was childish, or child-like, but not sophomoric. The characters were those kids in high school who for whatever reason did not dress or act as “grown up” as kids like Summer Wheatley. Their obliviousness, which is so obvious to everyone else, keeps them innocent and bizarrely sweet.
Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. It’s not about sophisticated people. It’s not cool or about being cool. It’s about being stuck being who you are and maybe having some success in the mundane little crap in life anyway. That’s why the hype is so annoying; once “cool” people get a hold of it, it’s ruined.