My wife put it on her Netflix queue, and I was not looking forward to it. All the ads I had seen made it look stupid to me. So I was really surprised to find how much I enjoyed it.
It’s an absurdist look at the suburban high school experience. Even the climactic sequence comes out of nowhere, as if to say: Look! Here’s your teen movie triumphant moment, where the snobby kids get their comeuppance, but it doesn’t make any more sense than the rest of the whole thing. And not making any sense at all is what suburban high school, and the entire social world that springs up around it, is very good at.
Let me preface this saying that in general, I really love small quirky independant movies. I really do. A couple of friends had recommended this movie, after seeing it in the theater, so I added it to my Netflix list. Was looking forward to seeing it. When the movie started, I thought "Oh cool. A new take on ‘Sixteen Candles’ from the geek’s view. Boy was I wrong. This movie blows. BIG TIME. After about 45 minutes I turned the sucker off and mailed it back.
Wow, exactly what I was thinking. If you didn’t get Napolean Dynamite, I’d be willing to bet you didn’t get Welcome to the Dollhouse or Ghost World either. All of these movies eschewed the formula that says the misfit character HAS to be sympathetic and likable.
I think people are reading too much into the movie. It’s just a series of scenes that happen to this nerdy character. If you didn’t find the character funny, then I don’t really know how to explain why he was funny. Different strokes, I guess. The OP seemed to be annoyed by him, which really I think was the whole point. He’s supposed to be annoying. It rather reminds me of people who dislike the Diane Chambers character on Cheers because she’s annoying. Well she’s supposed to be.
Napolean Dynamite wasn’t perfect; it certainly had gags that fell flat, but I enjoyed it a lot. I remember seeing previews for it and laughing, but thinking there’s no way it will work for an entire feature-length movie. But I honestly think it did. I felt entertained to the point that at the end, I was surprised that it was over already.
Based on the word of mouth, reviews I’d read, and the synopsis of the film, I expected to like it because, more often than not, I like quirky comedies as I have and odd sense of humor myself. I couldn’t have been more wrong… I don’t think I laughed more than three or four times during the entire film and wound up fast-forwarding through bits of it as well, something I almost never do.
On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 2 or a 3.
And for reference, since it’s being compared to it, I’d give Ghost World a 5.
I love Ghost World. I only saw Welcome to the Dollhouse once, when it first came out on video, but I remember liking it (except for the ending, which I seem to remember as being one of those “wait–that’s it?” endings). I didn’t like Napoleon Dynamite much at all. The bit with the tater tots was funny. Maybe 5 out of 10.
I enjoyed Ghost World. I appreciated Welcome to the Dollhouse.
I could see either of those movies again.
When it comes to Napoleon Dynamite, the best part was the opening credits. Yeah, some bits were quite funny (did laugh out loud at the time machine scene), many fell flat, and I was fairly underwhelmed. Don’t care to see it again.
I don’t think that people are necessarily reading too much into the movie; to me it’s more that for some viewers, the characters are fun to laugh at and easy to reproduce the next day at work or school. Artless but still entertaining.
But for me the movie is like a bag of potato chips (or a plate of tater tots); you consume it and it feels like a bunch of yucky empty calories. Just kind of a waste.
I loved “Ghost World.” I hated “Napoleon Dynamite.”
Whatever you think about Napoleon the character, the movie simply is not very funny. There’s a few decent jokes - I agree with the consensus that the time machine scene is a laugh, and the exchange when they’re watching the worst video ever made is funny too - but other than that the movie plods along and has no sense of comic timing. I don’t think it would be funny even if Napoleon was sympathetic.
I don’t buy the apologist line that you have to “get” the character to get the movie, and that those who don’t like it must not “Get” it. This is the standard apologist line for shitty movies; “well, you just don’t GET it!” (See: Verhoven, Paul.) Everyone GETS Napoleon; he’s an unlikeable spaz. (In the pantheon of high school archetypes, Napoleon is not a geek or a nerd. He’s a spaz.) Everyone knew a spaz in high school. Anyway, if you have to explain a joke, it’s not funny.
It is, as has already been pointed out, a movie that was specifically designed to be a “cult favaourite,” and it comes out feeling like it. Phony as hell.
You’ve got to be kidding me - the mere concept of anyone comparing the contrivance that is Napoleon Dynamite to the incredible writing and execution of Ghost World and Welcome to the Dollhouse makes me want to cut my own throat.
To answer the OP, the reason that everyone likes Napoleon Dynamite is that everything about the movie tells them to like it. The movie practically screams “I’m a cult movie! I’m going to be your new favorite cult movie!” to the point where they may as well have put a banner saying just that in the opening credits. Everythign about the film is affected or contrived to get that very response - from the self-consciously “random” humor to the hypnotic catchphrases (“if we do enough close-ups of Napoleon saying them while a needle scratch makes the soundtrack drop out, people will start repeating them!”).
Whereas any legitimate cult movie attains its status naturally, “Napoleon Dynamite” is a prepackaged movie with “cult” status built-in.
I think I might have watched the whole thing without laughing and then when the credits rolled, I thought, “that was a pretty damn funny movie.”
I just thought Nap was a unique, complete, believable, humorous character. If he was just funny quotes and funny hair, it would have been worse, but seeing him act with his grandmother, and brother and uncle and the llama really helped define him. I’d ALMOST compare him to “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski”.
I thought the funniest part was right after that when the woman shields her mouth and whispers to her husband, “Ah wawnt thayut.”
I share the OP’s confusion at the inexplicable reverence some have for this low budget B movie.
Those who compare it to a good movie, like Ghost World, or a truly kick-ass and well-written movie, like The Big Lebowski, please step back and reconsider just how terrible the bad acting is by everyone. And just the whole cloying contrived-ness of the entire exercise. How forced and wooden those “clever-cutesy” moments are.
Sure it is nice to see something different and not made by Hollywood, but if I wanted to see a high school movie, most of the existing genre is far better. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, for example.
I didn’t mean to imply that this was some never before heard of feat. It’s just a feature I enjoy in movies and seeing it in this one was appealing to me. As far as quotes go, forgive me for my hyperbole; I should have said, “Many people are able to quote something from the movie, whether exactly or paraphrased, that other people, who have also seen the movie, are able to recognize.”
The OP wanted to know what the appeal of the movie was. It was far from my favorite movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed it for my above reasons.
I think Napoleon Dynamite is the victim of too much hype. From what a lot of people have said, they heard all about it, then didn’t see what was so funny.
I saw it not knowing anything about it. It took a minute to see where it was coming from, then my fiance and I laughed all the way through. We also bought the DVD, which we’ve watched a bunch already.
Ftr, I also loved Ghost World and liked Welcome to the Dollhouse. ND is not Ghost World quality, but it’s still frickin’ sweet.
I couldn’t tell you why my teenage nieces and nephews like it.
For me, who experienced high school in the mid 80s, it was a satirical flashback of a lot of situations and characters that I could relate to. It made me laugh because it reflected the fact that if you could look back at your high school years, everyone from the geeks, to the jocks, to the popular girls, to the bullies, all looked goofy in their own way. But they were all in their own little worlds thinking that whatever they were doing at the time was pretty cool.
Who hasn’t seen any of the following:
-Before the popularity of cordless phones, the 20’ long phone cord.
-Kids who thought the height of cool was ninjas, nun-chucks, and bo-staffs
-Going off of wood board / cinder block jumps on bikes
-Thinking you can make money by selling door to door
-Really bad drawings by kids who think they can draw (aka 4-H club winners at our state fair)
-Lame speech and mis-pronunciation of words by the popular girl in school
-Jock guys who for the most part roll their eyes and ignore the geeks (not terrorize them like pop-culture would have you believe)
-Moon boots
-Practicing “dance moves” badly in the privacy of your own bedroom
It just felt a lot more real than some John Hughes film were everyone has big houses, cool cars, the jocks are assholes, the geeks are really the cool ones, and everyone has witty lines to say.
If you think your high school experience was more like Sixteen Candles or Fast Time at Ridgemont High your delusional. Go look through your old yearbooks and have a good laugh at everyone who took themselves so seriously.
You know, the odd thing was, during the opening credits they show Napoleon’s school ID card and I’m pretty sure it said 2003-04 as the year. I remember being really confused because I had assumed the movie took place in the 80s or so.
I’ve been told that there are some small towns out there that seem to have this feeling that they’re still stuck twenty years behind. Never having lived in a small town, I can’t confirm this.