Bad Reviews of Napoleon Dynamite

Well, maybe some critics liked the film... but as the selection below shows, far from all did.

“Ridicule rears its ugly head in this dreary comedy that was a most unlikely hit at this year’s Sundance Festival. (...) Napoleon plays it ignominiously, mistaking insults for jests and racism for narrative guile. Director Jared Hess’ tone is mockingly mean-spirited, making it virtually impossible to care for his motley crew of misfits.”
– Jeanne Aufmuth, Palo Alto Online

“I’m told the movie was greeted at Sundance with lots of laughter, but then Sundance audiences are concerned with being cool, and to sit through this film in depressed silence would not be cool, however urgently it might be appropriate.”
– Rober Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“It’s funny in the same way as beating that creepy D&D kid in the moon boots is funny, rendering comparisons to Todd Solondz’s incisive teen comedies unfair and wide of the mark. I don’t even have the energy to rail against the ways that blacks and Hispanics are parsed in the picture as, respectively, soul-infusion and intimidation.”
– Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

“Like a confused film school student, Hess is happy to pay homage to David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, Alex Cox, Terry Zwigoff, Harmony Korine and a dozen other directors, but doesn’t have enough passion to say much of anything in his own voice.”
– Larry Carroll, FilmStew

“Hess doesn’t have much interest in a plot, and there’s some half-hearted drama about a school election that doesn’t ever really go anywhere. Eventually, the movie ends. (...) I’m starting to wonder what, exactly, separates Hess from the bullies who feature so prominently in his film?”
– Sean Burns, Rotten Tomatoes/ Philadelphia Weekly

Philipp Lenssen on Wednesday, Dec 7 2005 reg. Napoleon Dynamite.