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Napoleon Dynamite (2004) DVD Review
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) DVD Credits:
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Directed by:
Jared Hess
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Written by:
Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Cast:
Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Tina Majorino, Haylie Duff, Ellen Dubin, Emily Kennard, Diedrich Bader, Sandy Martin
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) DVD Release Date:
15th May 2006
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Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Synopsis:

From the rural town of Preston, Idaho, comes Napoleon Dynamite. With a red 'fro, his moon boots and illegal government ninja moves, he is a new kind of hero. His family consists of fragile brother Kip, who's seeking his soul mate in online chat rooms; Uncle Rico, who is stuck in his "glory" days of high school football; and Grandma, who enjoys going out to the dunes on her quad-runner. Napoleon spends his days drawing magical beasts, working on his computer hacking skills to impress the chicks, and begrudgingly feeding his grandma's pet llama. When his friend Pedro decides to run for class president, it is Napoleon to the rescue to help him triumph over adversity.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) DVD Review:

The only problem with sleeper hits like Napoleon Dynamite is that once they get popular, often the heart is pounded right out of the very thing that was special in the first place. It happened with The Blair Witch Project and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. One had a bad sequel and the other had a worse spin-off television show. Thankfully this hasn’t happened with Napoleon Dynamite yet. Instead of a sequel Jared Hess has moved on to Nacho Libre, this summer’s big comedy, and the closest thing to overkill that Napoleon Dynamite might see is this special edition DVD.

Napoleon Dynamite took pop culture by storm with dozens of catch phrases and everyone with their own crappy impressions of their favorite character. The best part is that the film has virtually no plot. It is the strange experiences of a strange geek that lives in Idaho. He has very few friends, but he meets Pedro and Deb which leads to a number of interesting adventures. Napoleon and Pedro struggle to get dates for a dance and Deb has a few businesses trying to raise money for college. Napoleon also has a geeky older brother who is addicted to internet chat-rooms and an uncle that is still living in the glory days when he played high school football.

This new special edition DVD of the film has all of the great special features from the single disc DVD, but there are all sorts of new perks as well. The first disc has the audio commentary from the single disc with director/co-writer Jared Hess, Jon Heder (Napoleon), and producer Jeremy Coon. There is also a new cast commentary track with Aaron Ruell, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries and Tina Majorino. It would have been nice had Jon Heder been in this commentary track as well, but it is still a nice addition to the special features.

Disc two is split up into three categories. The first category is documentaries, which there are two of. The first one is “World Premiere Jared Hess”, a documentary about the director of Napoleon Dynamite. There is also a new documentary, “On Location: Napoleon Dynamite”, which is a ton of behind the scenes footage, often split-screened with the actual footage from the takes. This is fascinating at times and incredibly boring at times as well. There is a lot of footage and most of the time the camera is just a fly on the wall. It shows that being on a movie set can be boring, frustrating and sometimes fun.

The second section is for deleted and extended scenes, which there are a lot of. There are all of the deleted and extended scenes from the single disc, with a number of new ones. Some of the best deleted or extended scenes are on this DVD. Often they are just boring, but because of the way the set was run there seemed to be more flexibility for artistic experimentation. This leads to some great alternate takes. There are also new outtakes, which decent at times although they need to be edited together faster. Many of the special features are great but move far too slow.

The last section is just additional features, which is filled with a bunch of great extras. The best in this category is the Napoleon and Pedro sightings. For a while it seemed like Jon Heder was going to be appearing only as Napoleon, and all of these random appearances were collected and put on this DVD. There are award show appearances, Utah State Fair ads, TRL and SNL. The strangest is when a spelling bee contest does a random Napoleon Dynamite impression before spelling a difficult word. There are also all new audition clips, promos, still galleries, and a documentary about the wedding scene that was added at the end of the film after the first initial success that the film had. There is also the original short film, Peluca, with an optional commentary track.

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Napoleon Dynamite (2004) DVD review written by: Ryan Izay

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