PREMIERE.COM'S MOVIE REVIEW (posted 6/14/06)

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The same thermometer that measures the sociopolitical climate (which, when last checked, still reads "polarized") could gauge the not-so-new puritanism and forced family values that currently pervade the American blockbuster. Look at the often off-color Will Ferrell's tamed turn as a soccer dad in Kicking & Screaming, or in this summer's Talladega Nights, an inevitable cash cow milking Nascar country for its greenbacks (a tactic duplicated by Pixar's Cars). There's absolutely nothing wrong with clean comedy; in fact, it's a gift when parents and their kids can agree on what's funny, so long as iffy moralizing isn't disguised as tasteful entertainment.

But then there's Nacho Libre—director Jared Hess' PG-rated follow-up to his overpraised, casually racist Napoleon Dynamite—featuring a wimpy supporting lead who doesn't believe in God ("I believe in science" becomes his stock-reply gag). Moments before his masked-wrestling showdown with a villainous luchador champ, Mexican monastery orphan Nacho (Jack Black) effortlessly convinces his atheist tag-teammate to pray with him to win. The punchline is that there isn't actually a joke to justify this 180-degree turn in his adamant beliefs. A cartoonishly liberal thinker converts into a cartoonishly traditional conservative, thus perpetuating the myopic, black-or-white (excuse me, red-or-blue) mentality that has divided the country in two. If that seems overly critical for a silly summer movie, then what's with the dubious way the camera gazes mockingly at its cast of goofy-looking cultural stereotypes, forever butchering the Spanish language in its wake? When a nun announces she likes puppies, it's cheaply pronounced "poopies" to all the gringos' delight. Them fer'ners sure talk funny!

Not for nothing, the cynicism this critic feels towards Hess' integrity can certainly be overpowered by the manic soul of Jack Black, whose humanist zeal is genuine enough to sell bona fide spiritualism like the King of Auctioneers. (Or, at least as sensitively as the Farrelly Brothers might have.) Scripted by Hess, his wife Jerusha and School of Rock's Mike White, Nacho's processed cheese and tortilla-thin premise are purely a refried conduit for Black; a gorgeously vibrant and vacuous Wes Anderson tableaux—hipster titling, kitschy soundtrack and all—for the googly-eyed, mustachioed, Spanglish-speaking underdog to stand in front of as the lardy butt of most jokes. No, literally: buttcracks, farts, sphincter flexing, "buttloads of craploads of," feces-smearing and references to diarrhea, Nacho Libre makes an ass of itself in a way that would be inexcusably trashy if it weren't for the naïve sincerity of its star. Admittedly, a small handful of the goofier non-sequiturs work, such as the feral dwarf wrestlers and the corncob-in-the-eye trick. And when he runs out of material to tickle with, Black dips into his musically tenacious "deedle-diddle-dee" for some sure-fire ridiculousness.
—Aaron Hillis