Ultimate Poser Film

It's official: Napolean Dynamite is a movie for MTV suckers.

I put off watching it for a really long time, despite hearing from all of my friends how funny and quirky it was. "Oh, you'll love it! It's hilarious!"

They were sorely mistaken. You all were. This movie was absolutely a waste of time. It's almost as if all of pop culture had lied to me about this film.

I ask you: Are there really that many people dying to fit in that they won't dare point out how much this movie sucks?

The plot was slow-moving and without climax. The dialouge was reptitive and sounded as if it were written by Mormon middle-schoolers. And I've seen far better characterization in silent anime.

That, by far, was the biggest disappointment. I was told I'd identify with Naploean, Deb and Pedro. I don't know exactly how much of a loser my friends thought I was in high school, but I did not in any way identify with these characters, if you could even call them that (moving figures on a screen...?). These characters were so without personality and so annoying, I wanted to kill them. Pedro, who had very few lines, was the only tolerable one (and that's probably because of his lack of dialouge). Trust me, I was the most unpopular person in my school, but I gurantee you, if Napolean Dynamite had gone to my school, I would have kicked his ass every goddamn day. He's that unlikable.

Judging from the overhyping of this film by parent company MTV and the product placement (like the "Vote for Pedro" shirts you see in Hot Topic and on movie stars on the Daily Show), this movie is made for culture victims. I honestly think this movie has been kept afloat because of marketing and a sense of "coolness" if you "get it." People who, when they see it on people's IMs, their computer desktops and on ther trendy little metal buttons, it just HAS to be awesome. In other words, this movie has some sort of poser indie cred that keeps teen girls and emo boys in cuffed pants telling their friend show cool it is...but its only cool because MTV and "everyone they know" said so.

Don't buy into the hype. This movie is not an "instant classic", nor is it well-made, well-written or even well-acted. It was made for young people to pretend to like to be cool. It was made to sell t-shirts. It was made to make some random loser say idiot phrases like "gosh" and "darn" because it is somehow considered quotable. It isn't a cult film. It isn't a teen film. It isn't quirky. It's a bad movie.

Believe it.