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12/23/2004: Someone who saw it, please answer me this question....
is Napoleon Dynamite really any good?
I never saw it myself (slipped under the radar), but the TV's been seemingly awash in commercials for the Napoleon Dynamite DVD release, and the commercials make me extremely disinterested in seeing it.
One of the user comments on the IMDB page for the movie says that it may be "a love it or hate it" kind of flick. I can appreciate that (there are quite a few movies like that, and I've fallen on the "love it" side of a few and the "hate it" side of the rest, and that's cool; it's difference of opinion, after all, that makes a horse race), although the IMDB commenter claims that it's a cross between Monty Python and Tommy Boy. If that's the case I'm surprised that the commercials don't leave me wanting to see it; I'm a great fan of Python, and while it's not the greatest comedy of all time I found Tommy Boy to be enjoyable enough in a lighthearted fashion (Chris Farley and David Spade always, I thought, played well opposite each other, and I still think that casting Brian Dennehey as Chris Farley's father was a stroke of genius). But the commercials for Napoleon Dynamite leave me cold. Not as cold as this Christmas in Memphis, granted, but cold nonetheless.
Len on 12.23.04 @ 07:10 PM CST
Replies: 2 comments
on Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 at 11:42 PM CST, SadPunk said
I liked it OK in the theater, and LOVED it on second viewing last night. I do think, however, that a lot of its charm comes from (a) my having been a hopelessly unsuitable nerd in school, and (b) specifically having been an adolescent in the 1980s; there's a wealth of detail in the flick that I got a kick out of.
It's a very gimmicky flick, and I had to give it a second viewing before I was able to not be bothered by that.
on Sunday, December 26th, 2004 at 5:34 PM CST, roboto said
It's worth seeing, but I was disappointed with it.
All there was to the movie was its interesting characters; there was no plot, just: "hey, look at these 5 funny, quirky people" and "can you believe (s)he's that geeky?" There wasn't anything to it beyond the strange characters, and nothing happened. I liked ND alot better in 1995 when it was called Welcome to the Dollhouse.
ND was like that white creamy topping on pies. It was good at first, but you get tired of good stuff when it's that repetitive (it reminded me of what would happen if they had done a Kramer sitcom spinoff).
ND would have been great background characters for a central, normal character.