Napoleon Dynamite
2004  PG  COMEDY  1h 35min
CAST— Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Efren Ramirez, Tina Majorino, Diedrich Bader
MUSIC— John Swihart  DIRECTOR— Jared Hess

     Perhaps the most quotable film in a decade, Napoleon Dynamite chronicles the mundane misadventures of the title character, a high school loser with sweet skills. Along the way we meet his family: big brother Kip, a skinny little shrimp who sees himself an online Romeo who chats with babes all day, and Uncle Rico, a scheming wannabe who’s into sweet moolah. There’s also Napoleon’s best friend Pedro, who wants to make all our dreams come true by becoming class president, and Deb, who drinks 2% milk… even though she’s not fat; she could be drinking whole if she wants to. Then there’s Napoleon and Kip’s grandmother, who looks like a shemale Rodney Dangerfield impersonator, and Kip’s chat-room lover, Lafawnduh, his complete opposite, in every sense of the word. And who can forget Tina, a fat lard of a llama with helplessly strange eating habits? So the questions remain: Why spend so much time on the characters? Where’s the plot? Well, there really isn’t much of one, other than Pedro running for class president, and the characters are so funny and well-developed that everything relies on their dialogue and reactions, anyway. So, it doesn’t sound like much because it isn’t much. But it’s still funny and so enjoyable that that doesn’t matter. Everything falls into place just right, so that we come to know and love these oddball characters, and that’s what any good movie should do. Sweet! Later developed into an animated series.
OUR RATING— *** ½