Wednesday, January 12, 2005

"Do the chickens have large talons?"

Perhaps it was just the consequence of seeing it so soon after 'Garden State', but in places 'Napoleon Dynamite' felt as though it was trying too hard to be quirky and goofy.

Narratively challenged it certainly was, but that I could handle. I was expecting something more laugh-out-loud funny, though. The humour's there, certainly - just more low-key and deadpan and less slapstick than I'd anticipated. Expectations - ruiner of many a decent film.

All the same, 'Napoleon Dynamite' was very watchable as the work of a 24-year-old director, Jared Hess, and a cast of relative unknowns. The Tupperware-testing scenes were brilliant, and the dancing sequence at the end was almost enough to persuade me to spare Jamiroquai from the death sentence. Almost.

And the film also features not one, not two, but three - THREE! - fantastic moustaches. A tragically underrated facial adornment, methinks. The moustache revival starts here.

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