Nacho Libre

Jack Black, after forays into action hero (King Kong) and a rather bad comedy (Envy), returns to the mantle of comic god with his performance as Nacho, an impatient monk in love with a hot nun (Ana de la Reguera, the hottest nun since Julie Andrews’ Maria from The Sound of Music) and with a yearning to perform skull crushers. In an effort to get the children at his orphanage some better food, and to fulfill his childhood dreams of wrestling stardom, he enters the world of Mexican wrestling under the moniker Nacho Libre. This movie was directed by Jared Hess, his follow-up to Napoleon Dynamite, and it boasts the same kind of slow-paced humor, which Black revels in. I was surprised at how sweet and innocuous the film is (it’s rated PG, so the kids can go). This is the second time the famously vulgar Black has toned it down for an uplifting, live-action family flick (The School of Rock, of course, was the other). Screenwriter Mike White had a hand in both scripts, proving that he seems to know the comic sensibilities of Jack Black best.