Is this movie funny? I still honestly don't know.

Rating: 5/10 (1 October 2006)

When it comes to surreal, bizarre characters and hilariously deadpan dialogue, Jared Hess's 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite sets the pace. Now, Hess is back, and this time he's had his $400,000 budget upsized to $38 million, and he has comedian Jack Black at his disposal. Nacho Libre is a film that is just as bizarre as Napoleon Dynamite, but it is a film that at times I found insulting in its laziness and puerile nature.
Nacho Libre's premise is terrific: Jack Black plays Ignacio, a Mexican monk who works as a cook in an orphanage. In order to earn money to buy better ingredients, Ignacio joins his strange friend Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez) in taking on the local wrestling circuit. Along the way, they wrestle two weird-looking demon/midget hybrids (pictured above), and a big guy named "Silencio" whose specialty is "throwing people". There were several moments in Nacho Libre that made me laugh so hard that I missed part of the next scene. There is also, inexplicably, a fart sound effect implemented every time Ignacio prepares to jump. This strange mix of Hess's bread and butter (exchanges like "it sucks to be me right now", "How come?", "How come do you think?") and immature, lowest common denominator humour makes his new film very conflicting. It has a lovable hero, and admirable intentions, but it makes one stupid joke too many.
Jared Hess has a distinct style. It requires every character who is not involved in the main action of a scene to simply stare just past the camera with their mouths slightly agape and their eyes blank. The actors involved in the actionaren't required to do much more. I'm not sure how many films Hess can make before this style gets old and annoying. I think he's almost reached his limit with two. That being said, Esqueleto is hilarious, particularly when you look back on his behaviour after you see the film, and really see how ridiculous he is. There are also two songs that Ignacio sings that almost had me in pain while I was laughing. I was also very surprised to see that Danny Elfman, of all people, composed much of the film's soundtrack. And, for fans of Napoleon Dynamite, there's a nice little visual reference to the 2003 film's opening credits when Ignacio serves the orphans salad.
Half-way through the film, I remember thinking "this movie is not very funny". In the car on the way home, however, my 26-year-old brother and I recounted several scenes and were in hysterics. Something similar happened the first time I saw Napoleon Dynamite. I simply didn't 'get' the film first time, but on retrospect, and after several conversations with my friends, I decided it was one of the funniest films I'd ever seen, and lines like "but my lips hurt real bad" seeped into my everyday parlance. I'm still not sure if Nacho Libre will endure as well as Napoleon Dynamite has, and at this stage, I can't say I'd recommend it. But if you do go to see it, expect to hear the line, "I only believe in science" on repeat in your head, over and over.