My god this film felt like it was never going to end. It has a running time of just 90 minutes, but it seemed like it took a whole day for me to watch it from start to finish. It's no wonder that it's taken me nearly 2 weeks to recover and to actually write a review. First things first, I didn't get Napoleon Dynamite. I can't recall me ever laughing at the it and I found the unlikeable lead.... well unlikeable. Not a good sign. It felt to me that Jared Hess with Napoleon Dynamite was trying to succeed in making this "offbeat" cult movie, before it earned that status (and honestly, it doesn't). However, I can see why people might like it, so just like I do with movies that aren't my humour (like how Borat looks), I say "fine" and just let it pass me by. Back to Nacho then and my expectations weren't high. I was once a big fan wrestling fan, so I was at least curious to see the movie but after Ready to Rumble, I kinda know that wrestling and movies don't really mix all that well. And besides, the trailers for this thing were terrible. The film begins with the same slow pace of Napoleon Dynamite, and you know right from the beginning that this is going to be a long ride. By the end of what felt like 24 hours worth of nothing, I came to the conclusion that this was a half-assed attempt at a movie. The plot is only half-finished, characters are wafer thin, the jokes are lazy and infrequent (how many fart jokes does one movie need!) and there is absolutely nothing to keep you interested. It's like they had a 40 minute script and said, "well we can add a couple of fart jokes here, let Jack sing a stupid song for a while, then have a bit of slapstick" and it will be fine. Nacho Libre is not fine. It is far from fine. Jack Black is a funny guy in things such as High Fidelity and School of Rock where he is basically playing an existenstial version of himself but in Nacho Libre he has this ridiculous Mexican accent which really doesn't suit him. Black's best humour is oral, but the stupid character he has been given here takes away any chance of that and restricts his performance to a "one-joke" character. And the sad thing is, that one joke isn't at all funny.
rating: 1.5
Advertisement
This is one of the worst movies of 2006 and I'm absolutely shocked that anyone with half a brain could even like this movie in the slightest. I didn't get Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite so I haven't flamed it as much as I could have, but with Nacho Libre I get what he is trying to do and frankly, he failed miserably.
