In Nacho Libre, Jack Black plays a charmingly roly-poly friar with a bad accent and a sick mustache who lives a secret life as a luchador. Based on that premise, is it really any surprise that the movie has a healthy peppering of fart jokes, over-the-top mugging, saucy one-liners and random "WTF" moments (e.g. a training scene when Esqueleto gets shit smeared on his face and is shot in the back with an arrow)?
What we found surprising is the ruthless beating Nacho has been getting from the critics. It only got a 37% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, and though it got a 6.1/10 on IMDB.com, user comments ranged from "racist" to "stupid, really, really stupid." Here's some of the more incendiary criticism the film has received, and what we think of the commenters.
"Slightly less funny than cancer..." --
Sean Burns,
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY
Sean has learned the art of hyperbole! Congratulations, Sean. People from your city tend to be a happy bunch with a feathery sense of subtlety, and you've proven to be no exception to the rule. This headline will take on a special relevance in the likely event that someone you know dies of the disease. My guess would be with their dying breath, they'll say something along the lines of, "You know, Sean was right, this is much funnier than
Nacho Libre!"
"If ever there were a one-trick pony, Nacho Libre is it." --
Annlee Ellingson,
BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
Oh, shut the fuck up, Annelee. OK, yes, it's by the same guys who did
Napoleon Dynamite. Yes, the whole movie is pretty much one joke over and over again. But you know what? There are a couple of other one joke movies that are comedy classics (
Dumb and Dumber and
Anchorman) and while
Nacho doesn't belong in that class, it certainly doesn't warrant the use of such a tired horse cliche. If we didn't know any better we'd say Annlee was beating a dead horse. (Obligatory zing!)
"Nacho're best movie, Mr. Black, but you do have some moves and a few laughs." --
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone,
THEMOVIECHICKS.COM
Oh, you silly girls -- I see what you're doing here. A pun! How delightful! Too bad you are FUCKING RETARDED! If you're trying to do a "Nacho're" = "Not your" play on words, please remember that there's a very elementary difference between "you're" and "your" and that the correct version of your poorly planned pun would be "Nacho'r," which actually looks really stupid, JUST LIKE YOUR STUPID FACES.
"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." --
Kevin Carr,
7M PICTURES
Listen, Kevin — don't get all hostile and bitter just because you get paid in buttered popcorn and a comped tickets to shit-flicks like
Elizabethtown. Also, don't use "pedantic" when reviewing movies like
Nacho Libre. It just clues people into the fact that you're exactly the type of person who doesn't get it.
"I did not like this film's disgusting portrayal of mexicans ... I mean, what was Jack Black supposed to be? A mexican? He looks about as much like a mexican as Albert Einstein did." --
chuckdobbins, from the
IMDB.com message board
Actually, Dobber, if you had taken that dick out of your ear while you were watching the movie, you would have caught the part where Black explains that he's only half Mexican. And there actually