Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Writer/director Jared Hess sets Napoleon Dynamite in his hometown of Preston, Idaho with a mixture of tenderness and mockery. I expected Napoleon Dynamite to be dark, disturbing, and somewhat depressing, but it’s almost uplifting... in an unusual sort of way.

Unlike most movies set at high schools, Napoleon Dynamite has a refreshing lack of mean-spiritedness and preaching. Sure, there are good guys and bad guys, but you almost can’t fault the bullies for shoving Napoleon against a locker. The kid keeps Tater Tots in his pockets, for gosh sake!

Even the in-crowd kids at school like Summer (Haylie “Hillary’s sister” Duff) and Trisha (Emily Kennard) aren’t that mean, so Napoleon Dynamite doesn’t deserve to be compared to Revenge of the Nerds. I mean, you and I wouldn’t want to date Napoleon or Pedro either.

Napoleon (Jon Heder) is a nerd but not in the positive sense. He’s not going to invent any new technologies like Bill Gates or solve any complex equations. He’s simply socially retarded. Napoleon wears snow boots, tight jeans, and thick glasses, and his hair looks like the toupée that my J.V. softball coach sported.

Fortunately for Napoleon, he finds a partner in apathy and alienation in Pedro Sanchez (Efren Ramirez), Preston High’s sole Hispanic student and the only guy in school who can grow a mustache. Pedro, wearing a string tie and cowboy boots, looks just as out of place as Napoleon does, but he has ambition, asking out the most popular girl in school and running for class president. Rounding out their group of friends is Deb (Tina Majorino), who works in a homemade Glamor Shots studio and suffers from a lack of self-esteem. Napoleon's opening line to Deb in the cafeteria is, “I see you’re drinking 1% milk. Is that because you think you’re fat? Because you’re not. You could probably be drinking whole milk.”

Napoleon suffers from the passive sort of anger that affects the powerless. He alternates between staring numbly into space and verbally taking out his frustrations on his brother, his uncle, and their pet alpaca. Napoleon's affect, a constantly blank expression, got on my nerves a bit as did his habit of talking with his eyes closed and his bottom lip hanging down. Napoleon may lose his temper a few times, but he never swears, even when his uncle throws a steak at his head, and he quickly retreats back into his nerd coma. “Gosh!”, “freakin,’” “heck,” and “butt-load” take the place of stronger words in Napoleon's innocent vocabulary.

Kip (Aaron Ruell), Napoleon's older brother, spends all his time chatting to his online girlfriend LaFawnduh. While Kip and Napoleon are both entertaining characters, I thought Hess should have made them a bit more different from each other. Both Dynamite brothers are expressionless and clueless.

When their caretaker grandmother (Sandy Martin) is injured in a dune buggy accident, Uncle Rico (John Gries) steps in to take care of the boys. His presence is hardly necessary since Kip is over 30, and Rico ends up further aggravating poor Napoleon. Rico is possibly the most delusional and pathetic character of all. He longs to travel back in time to 1982 to replay the state football championship game and makes countless videotapes of himself throwing footballs. Unlike Kip and Napoleon, Rico is assertive and makes a decent living as a door-to-door salesman.

It’s difficult to tell in which era Napoleon Dynamite is supposed to take place. The clothing, hairstyles, and music seem decidedly early 1980s most of the time, but characters use the Internet and dance to the Backstreet Boys at others. I found this clash of decades somewhat distracting. It would have been one thing if Napoleon and his dysfunctional family had been the only ones that seemed stuck in a different time, but several girls at the school dance seemed to be sporting '80s dresses, and one even has crimped hair.

While the script is clever and very quotable, a good deal of the humor in Napoleon Dynamite is visual with Napoleon's dancing being a highlight.

Napoleon Dynamite is a tad slow-moving and doesn’t have much of a plot, but its unusual characters and scenarios make it head and shoulders above the other drivel that’s out there.



Recommended: Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older