EAGLE VS. SHARK

I liked Eagle vs. Shark much more the first time I saw it, when it was called Napoleon Dynamite. OK, let me be fair: in Eagle vs. Shark, the dorky girl gets to be more center stage than dorky boy, and these awkward outcasts aren't actually teens, but in fact are probably late 20-somethings. But when the main guy Jarrod goes on and on about his ultimate fighting skills (and we are shown via various practice sessions that he does not—unsurprisingly—have these skills), and his sister and brother-in-law have many failed get-rich-quick sales schemes (track suits and makeup, vs. Tupperware and breast implants), and another adult character happens to draw painfully childish cartoons that everyone is impressed with... well... you just can't help but wish writer/director Taika Waititi tried a little harder to be original.

Lily (Loren Horsley) is a lowly love-struck counter-worker at Meaty Boy, a fast-food burger joint. Her crush is one of the joint's regular customers, mulleted Jarrod (Jermaine Clement), but he has designs on the cute blonde at the next register. One day Jarrod hands Lily an invitation for a party ("Come dressed as your favorite animal...") that she gives to the disinterested co-worker, but Lily takes her chance and shows up at Jarrod's in a shark costume. A video game smackdown later, they have sex (which actually takes less time than it does for Jarrod to struggle with a condom). Love is in the air.

Lily accompanies Jarrod to his hometown, where he hears that his high school nemesis (aka the guy who used to beat him up) has returned—of course Jarrod, with his new ultimate fighting and nunchuck skills, wants revenge. Unsurprisingly, Jarrod's family are a bunch of characters, including sister and brother-in-law, with their matching track suits (that say AWESOME down the sleeve), and wheelchair-bound dad, who pines over Jarrod's golden-boy dead brother who killed himself. More surprising to Lily, perhaps, is that Jarrod has an 8-year-old daughter, and dreams of being with his dead brother's fiancée despite the fact that Lily is right there.

Some of Eagle vs. Shark is cute (the animal costumes at the party are hilariously bad; the character of Lily, who grows a spine by the end, is quite endearing; and the animated sleeping bag scene is great), but so much of it feels derivative of Napoleon and other adolescent man-boy films that seem to have sprouted up left and right these days. I'm sure one of the main draws for people curious about this film will be Jermaine Clement, who has gone on to cult fame of late with his show and band Flight of the Conchords. Alas, anything on that show is inherently funnier that most of this movie. If you can't get enough of him (or the film), the DVD is chock full of over a dozen deleted scenes, outtakes, plus commentary by Taika Waititi.