When “Napoleon Dynamite” premiered 15 years ago, reviews were, well, mixed. The Orlando Sentinel called it “the funniest movie of the summer”; the BBC said it “revels in its own kookiness and is the most engaging teen movie to emerge from the States for many a year.”
CinemaBlend, on the other hand, opined that filmmaker Jared Hess “pushes Napoleon's stupidity as far as it can go in pursuit of cheap laughs, but achieves nothing that isn't easily forgettable.” And Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, “There is a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor.