...by hanging its oddball characters on the most obvious of plots, it dilutes the weirdness that would have made it unique.
Comment
06/15/06
Nacho Libre (2006)
39
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:159
Fresh:62
Rotten:97
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: At times hilarious, but other times offensive, Director Jared Hess is unable to recapture the collective charisma of his Napoleon characters, instead relying on a one-joke concept that runs out of steam. Sure to entertain the adolescents, however.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $80,197,993
Synopsis: Celebrating the triumphs and tribulations of the lovable loser is no easy thing, but filmmaker Jared Hess seems to thrive in this specific cinematic exercise. Working fresh off the success of... [More]
Starring: Jack Black, Ana DeLa Reguera, Hector Jiminez, Peter Stormare
Director: Jared Hess
Reviews for Nacho Libre
121 - 140 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
the film never lives up to its potential of being a classic silly comedy, so you want to put the writers and director in a headlock.
06/15/06
It certainly succeeds in being different, but peculiar doesn't necessarily mean enjoyable.
06/15/06
Black does everything humanly possibly to try to make this movie work, even spending a good deal of time wearing silly blue tights and getting beat up many, many, many, many times but the script pile-drives him into the mat.
06/15/06
Hess colors the film with his askew sensibility that twists the slapstick into an oddball realm of droll humor that favors the eccentric over the hilarious.
06/15/06
If Black had shed 15 pounds prior to shooting, his shrunken waistline would taken half of the film's jokes with it.
06/15/06
Whatever its faults, you won't walk out of it thinking it's just like every other movie this summer.
06/15/06
I really did want to like this film, but I found it pedantic and dull. I actually dozed off in the middle, and I haven't done that since Elizabethtown.
06/15/06
The camera languishes on sequences like Nacho rubbing cow manure into Esqueleto's face. Jokes like these are nacho good, nacho funny.
06/15/06
Tightly paced, fast as a whip and addictively entertaining.
06/15/06
Napoleon Dynamite's racism was unmistakable, Nacho Libre's less so, subverted as it is by Jack Black's comic humanism.
06/15/06
Jack Black pauses frequently as though desperate for a few audience laughs.
06/15/06
Nacho Libre is more lazy than offensive. Things happen, but there's really no story. People do stuff, but they don't become characters. It might have made a dandy Saturday Night Live skit. But it's not much of a movie.
06/15/06
We love pratfalls and physical humor, but Libre isn't a comedy vehicle. It just sits there, making you wish Pedro or Uncle Rico would blast into the scene and make something happen. Tragically, they don't.
06/15/06
Top CriticWhat's rare to see, and what ultimately makes Nacho Libre so enjoyable, is the story of an underdog who's allowed to remain a humble clown all the way to becoming a hero.
06/15/06
Top CriticThe only gag here, as far as I can tell, is Black squeezing himself into a pair of red tights and prancing around like a mental patient. Funny yes, but over the course of an hour and a half, it wears a wee thin.
06/15/06
Creating hermetic worlds in a manner so reminiscent of Wes Anderson that the Rushmore auteur should consider suing, Hess shows little affection for his characters.
06/15/06
In his endearingly ridiculous new comedy, Jack Black plays a half-Mexican, half-Scandinavian monastery cook from Oaxaca who moonlights as a masked wrestler.
06/15/06
Top CriticNacho Libre is a throwaway movie, but that doesn't mean it could not have been better.
06/15/06
Is it funny? Now and then. Stupid? Very. Racist? Possibly. Ugly? Profoundly. Wild? Undeniably. Singular? Completely.
06/15/06
Top CriticLatest News for Nacho Libre
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