The Netflix Report: Eagle vs. Shark
I wish Eagle vs. Shark had come along a few years ago. It just doesn’t seem fair: make a movie about love among the socially awkward and you’re always going to be trailing along behind Napoleon Dynamite, regardless of what you were aiming at in the first place.
In lots of ways, Eagle vs. Shark is a better movie than Napoleon Dynamite. Or maybe it’s just made of slightly stronger stuff: it’s heavier, sadder, funnier in parts, and it has a clearer plot arc. The leading man, Jarrod Jemaine Clement, now of Flight of the Conchords), is like Napoleon with trust issues and a post-high school blood vendetta, and his long-suffering love interest, Lily (Loren Horsley), is therefore required to be even more redemptive by the power of her love and devotion. So maybe it’s like Napoleon Dynamite for grown-ups.
So that’s the bad news: we’ve seen some of this before, and even when it’s funny, the recycled-air feeling doesn’t quite go away. The good news is that the parts we haven’t seen are really pretty good. Writer/director Taika Cohen does an impressive job of letting Jarrod be utterly off-putting and then using Lily’s lovability to make up for it: seen through her forgiving eyes, he becomes understandable, at least, even if he’s still being a complete twit. And he is a complete twit much of the time. But there’s something refreshing about a movie that doesn’t feel the need to prove that its characters are cool, or that they’ve somehow become cool over the course of the two hours you’ve spent with them, and Eagle vs. Shark doesn’t put itself out trying to convince us. Maybe that’s the point: these people were awkward when they met, and they’re still awkward, and yet here they are, trying to work things out. And trust me: if they can, anybody can.
Eagle vs. Shark, Flight of the Conchords, Jemaine Clement, Loren Horsley, Taika Cohen, DVD review
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