THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE (Disney) Voices: David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton, Wendie Malick. Screenplay: David Reynolds. Producer: Randy Fullmer. Director: Mark Dindal. MPAA Rating: G. Running Time: 78 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
At various points during Disney's THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE, it becomes apparent that it could have been a mediocre-at-best piece of animated film-making. Here there's a significant lack of detail in the background animation; over there, a gaping hole where a catchy tune might have buoyed the proceedings; throughout, a narrative that doesn't exactly set the world on fire. Yes, it's all pretty tepid stuff -- and then a character will open his mouth, and set you to giggling uncontrolably. After years of watching its animated features soar on various permutations of stunning visuals, engaging story-telling and memorable songs, Disney has finally made a film that succeeds almost exclusively on the strength of its vocal performances.
And it does so by a fairly narrow margin. The straightforward plot focuses on Kuzco (voice of David Space), an arrogant teenage emperor of a culture somewhere in pre-Colombian America. Kuzco is on the verge of turning the family home of a gentle peasant named Pacha (John Goodman) into a summer palace when he invokes the ire of his nasty advisor Yzma (Eartha Kitt). With the aid of her simpleton henchman Kronk (Patrick Warburton), Yzma slips Kuzco a potion that turns him into a llama. Stranded alone in the jungle, Kuzco's only chance of returning to his old imperial, human self is you guessed it, the same gentle peasant whose family home he was set to destroy. Bonding and learning of important lessons ensues.
In a way, the whole business is quite beneath Disney. Much of THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE feels cobbled together as an afterthought, as though the real A-team Mouseke-thinkers were too busy making FANTASIA 2000 or figuring out how to promote 102 DALMATIANS. While the character animation is effective, virtually everything else is about as eye-catching as your typical Hanna-Barbera background. The progression of the story is bland, with only a couple of really good action set pieces to liven things up. Meanwhile, the music is left to score composer John Debney (okay, but unmemorable) and the songwriting tandem of lyricist Sting and composer David Hartley (whose two numbers feel jarringly out of place in the otherwise non-musical film).
Not exactly the stuff of which Disney animated "classics" are made, at least until the voice actors get to strut their stuff. David Spade provides the perfect petulant, all-about-me vibe for Kuzco, though it certainly helps to be in tune with Spade's typical caustic sense of humor. As the villainous Yzma, Eartha Kitt growls her role with such delicious malevolence it boggles the mind that she has never been cast as a Disney animated villain before. But the real show-stopper is Warburton's Kronk, one of those essentially decent lunkhead sidekicks who eventually do their evil bosses more harm than good. The part is a familiar one, but Warburton delivers his lines with such a combination of deadpan idiocy and absolute sincerity that nearly every syllable out of Kronk's mouth is hilarious. Screenwriter David Reynolds provides some clever dialogue, but it's not nearly as good as the people who bring it to life.
The one weak link in the cast is Goodman, though it's not really his fault. Pacha is as personality-impaired a character as Disney has created in a long time for a central role (okay, probably since POCAHONTAS). He's not exactly the hero, not exactly the comic relief -- he's just the big, good-natured guy necessary to move the plot along. Considering the relative blandness of the plot itself, there are all kinds of reasons to suspect that THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE should have been a dud. Congratulations to Spade, Kitt and Warburton -- and to the casting director -- for giving the film the spark the rest of the creative team couldn't quite manage.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 jolly llamas: 6.
Visit Scott Renshaw's Screening Room http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the Screening Room for details, or reply to this message with subject "Subscribe".
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews