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Dumb And Stupider

it shows the occasional superheroics of ordinary life
his alien antics, for he is, from beginning to end, so consistently otherworldly and insulated from reality that whatever interior life he may have remains entirely inaccessible, making any kind of empathy or identification with him impossible. Looking at the world through bespectacled eyes that are almost completely shut, reacting to everything - good or bad - with the same pained expression, barely seeming even to register his own final moment of triumph, and spending most of his time talking about fantasy beasts and nunchaku skills, Napoleon seems to inhabit a world from which the viewer is forever excluded - which makes him far easier to laugh at than laugh with, despite the film's pretensions to championing outsiders. Add to this the fact that Napoleon seems borderline retarded, and all the jokes at his expense might leave you feeling, upon reflection, more than a little uncomfortable - even if at the time they do seem very funny indeed.
What is touching, however, and perhaps the film's central theme, is the strength, however strangely expressed, of the friendship between Napoleon, Deb and Pedro, and the different favours which the three do to support each other once they have gravitated together into a unit. This, more than the myriad of throwaway subplots involving ripoff time-machines, martial arts classes, tupperware, internet dating, hungry llamas and herbal breast enhancers, is what remains memorable about 'Napoleon Dynamite' - while the scene in which Napoleon finally achieves his heroic triumph is so miraculously unhinged that you really will be left believing that "all your wildest dreams will come true".
It's Got: Lots of people saying "dang", "sweey" and "jeez", the phrase "our underwater ally" applied to the loch Ness monster, a ham-eating llama called Tina, 'Dance Grooves' videos, magical ligers, chickens with "large talons", egg juice, a perfect politician's wig, performances without...