Review by ztsieg

In the years since its release, it has been featured on t-shirts, posters, fridge magnets, books of quotations, and basically anything a teenager would take to school (pens, pencils, binders, backpacks, literally anything). The way I've seen people react to it, I'd almost think it was the film that defined my generation.

When I saw the movie, I had a hard time believing it was ever such a cultural phenomenon. It's not particularly good or, as some critics say, particularly bad -- but it is particularly boring. I only laughed once during the entire 96-minute run-time. I won't say that makes it a failure as a comedy, but it is definitely a failure when it came to keeping my attention.

For a film that supposedly made an accurate representation of an Idaho community, I felt that none of the characters were particularly grounded in reality, Napoleon least of all, who is such an infamously rude jerk that it is probably why the film is so quotable. The problem then becomes: he is such a rude jerk that at no point in time did I find myself rooting for him or his efforts to help Pedro become class president.

...which, by the way, despite being the advertised plot point, the movie took just about half its run-time, if not more, to reach. I won't say here whether it is successful or not -- only that the way it is resolved comes from left-field and makes little sense.

Those of you who have seen this movie can go ahead and tell me that's why it was supposed to be funny -- precisely because it didn't make sense. I will then say right back at you, that it is a lazy way to resolve the plot.