ZERO STARS/****
starring Loren Horsley, Jemaine Clement, Joel Tobeck, Craig Hall
written and directed by Taika Waititi
by Ian Pugh Perhaps the most creatively null film since the remake of When a Stranger Calls, Eagle vs Shark doesn't just feel like Napoleon Dynamite, doesn't just owe its existence to Napoleon Dynamite–it practically fucking is Napoleon Dynamite, and God help you if you need another one of those. The only difference, really, is that it takes place in New Zealand and focuses more on the romantic angle: shortly after she is ousted from her job at a fast-food joint, quiet loser Lily (Loren Horsley) falls head over heels for Napoleon clone Jarrod (Jon Heder clone Jemaine Clement), a mealy-mouthed douchebag with a ridiculously over-inflated opinion of himself, an obsession with exacting revenge on his high school bully, and, thrown into the mix for no discernible reason, a nine-year-old daughter (not Abigail Breslin but an incredible simulation). Then come the blank, silent stares and the shitty drawings and the obsession with silly animals, the film's giggling sense of superiority over freaks and geeks tempered only by a final act of kindness intended to make us feel good about the "heroes" and forget that we've been mocking them for the last hour-and-a-half. I invite you to look at any reasonable reading of Jared Hess's depressingly popular film to cull a sight-unseen opinion about this tiny little stupid indie nothing; it would be difficult to care at all were it not for the looming threat that this approach to comedy is quickly becoming a genre unto itself.
