Napoleon Dynamite Critique

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite is a movie that really has no definite plot Climax or Resolution. It centralizes around a very interesting high school kid named Napoleon Dynamite and his experiences with his family and his two friends Deb and Pedro.

The movie takes place in Idaho, in the present time, although Napoleon and his family seem to dress as if they were a few decades behind. Throughout the movie they are always wearing outdated clothes and don't seem to have any sense of style or color coordination. Weather it be Kip, wearing his tucked in, buttoned up polo's, or Uncle Rico and his form fitting colorful shirts, none of Napoleons family including himself wear anything that seems to match or is up to date. This all plays a part in the whole "feel" to the movie.

Many scenes in the movie are very uncomfortable to watch. The settings and characters give the feeling that if you were there, you would not want to be. Throughout the movie all the characters seem to be perspiring uncontrollably in locations you would not want to be. Who wants to be watching the "happy hands" presentation, have a pocketful of cold tatertots, or be in the middle of Idaho running to school wearing a brown, thrift mart suit in hot weather? Dare I mention lunchtime after tending to the chickens?

Aside from the scene where Napoleon gets hit in the face with a steak, the style of humor in the movie is not obvious. It is all very subtle and is not going to jump out at you. How the writer and director thought this movie would end up being funny is unbelievable. On the surface and on paper, no part of the movie sounds like it would be remotely funny at all. It is the actors execution of their roles and interaction with other characters that pull off the humor that enriches the film

The time period this movie takes place in seems to be the present, yet many things in the movie lead you to believe otherwise. Napoleons friends and family's costumes all seem to be from a different decade, the music seems to be some type of 80's elevator music that plays throughout the film, and the technology doesn't seem to go much further than the early 90's, with kips "pay by the minute" Internet chats, or napoleons cassette tape dance tunes. Even their hairstyles are all very different but still outdated.

Sense almost none of the characters are very famous, the characters in this movie are very believable because you accept them immediately as they present themselves. Some are more underdeveloped than others, but still believable. The majority of the people in this film are white. The movie is chalked full of the character clichйs and seems to have one of each; The small, nerdy