Napoleon Dynamite
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) is a difficult movie for
me to judge. It wasn’t really a good
movie, by any stretch of the imagination, yet I found myself giving over to
laughter partway into the film. I’m
still not exactly sure why. I was at
first among those disgusted that this could even be called a movie, let alone
one that you‘d plunk down money for at the multiplex. The plot is nonexistent; and the acting for almost every
character is carried with a bored sluggishness that is bound to annoy a large
portion of the audience. A friend of
mine who had seen it said that the movie had great concepts, but they were
executed poorly. On a certain level,
he’s right. But this movie aims to be
anticlimactic, and just generally dull.
I’d say that his statement would be more valid if it was aimed at a
movie that failed its cinematic mission; but Napoleon Dynamite is a
movie that strives fairly hard for a different kind of laugh, and has earned
itself an audience largely comprised of generation-Y potheads.
This humor is certainly a big step away from the typical
90’s teen comedy - usually stuffed to the gills with fart jokes and sex. Then again... those types of movies haven’t
disappeared, they’ve just been badly rehashed into new films that possess none
of the flavor that was originally contained.
Initially, I felt that American Pie was a terrible movie (and it
is), but since then, several other movies have come along that numb the mind
even further - yet they still find an audience, willing to flock to theaters to
see the inevitable clone of a sequel.
So, in an era where effective comedies are ever dwindling, a movie that
sets itself apart from the rest is welcome to join the fray - just don’t expect
it to grab everyone the same way.
The commentary track included here is much like the movie
itself, in that it isn’t very exciting, yet it manages to be funny and somewhat
interesting much of the time. Other
bonus features are kind of skim, but it’s nice to be able to see the short that
Napoleon evolved from, “Peluca”, even if it really isn’t that
good. Aside from assorted ads and
promos, there’s a very short making-of segment that covers Kip’s wedding
ceremony - an epilogue seen after the credits, and filmed a year after the rest
of the movie had been done.
The picture quality hovers between average and just above
so. The audio is in 5.1 Dolby Digital
surround sound - but it doesn’t really seem all that necessary. Splitting up the sound between extra
channels doesn’t exactly alter the experience of this movie, as everything you
hear is fairly mundane. In my opinion,
a stereo mix would have sufficed just fine for a movie of this type, as you
probably won’t feel too immersed in the experience by the audio here anyway.
Buying this movie outright is probably a risk, as I can
envision some people not even watching it the whole way through, even after
purchasing it. Instead of having this
DVD case collect dust on your shelf, rent it first, or even borrow - as I know
several people already who can’t even justify the rental fee for this. Like I said, I did enjoy this movie - but
recommending it to others blindly is a difficult thing for me to do. Take a chance, maybe you’ll like it more
than you’d have expected from what you might have heard elsewhere.
- David Milchick
