The Emperor's New Groove Reviews

The Emperor’s New Groove’s troubled production is the stuff of legends, yet you wouldn’t know it from watching the film. Originally an epic genre mash-up called Kingdom of the Sun, Disney executives balked at the production overruns and hot on the heels of the underperforming, overly ambitious latter films of the Disney Renaissance, they demanded numerous changes. What was left was a slapstick heavy film that lasts about 75 minutes, and it’s one of the underrated gems of the Disney output.

 

The original production re-conceived The Prince and the Pauper as a musical epic in the Inca Empire, complete with plans for grand dame baddie Yzma to call upon the god of death, Supai, to destroy the sun, turns the real emperor into a llama, and makes the impostor do her bidding. Practically none of this appears in The Emperor’s New Groove, aside from a few names, and the typical Disney homogenized variation of an ethnic culture. The film’s treatment of Latin American culture, and the Inca Empire in particular, is as hodge-podge as the vaguely Arabic garnishes of Aladdin.

 

Where The Emperor’s New Groove excels is in creating memorable characters, a string of strong gags, and numerous quotable passages of dialog. This film tosses out the typical Disney playbook, borrows liberally from the humor found in The Simpsons, The Muppets, or Chuck Jones’ shorts, and is all the better for it. There are only so many glossy, prestige-chasing films one can watch before you wish for something different from the studio, and this one delivers big time.

 

Kuzco, our hero, is quite the little twat, who deserves to be taken down a few pegs and learn some humility. David Spade’s bratty vocals are a perfect fit for the character, and he really sells the snarky humor. Kuzco comes armed with a series of sassy one-liners, and his transformation into a llama only escalates his acerbic disposition. He bounces off of John Goodman’s empathetic and humble Pacha quite well, and the film is a solid buddy comedy road trip.

 

Even better is the dynamic between Eartha Kitt’s Yzma and Patrick Warburton’s Kronk, her dim-bulb, sweet, brawny henchman. Kitt plays her role for all of the hysteric camp potential she can find, and she can find a lot. Yzma is a most pleasing villain, not because she’s threatening, but because she’s so grandiose and melodramatic. Watching her is a lot of fun given how much pleasure she takes out of being evil and chewing the scenery. Kronk is a nice contrast to her, as he frequently finds himself fighting between wanting to do the right thing and helping Yzma complete her goals. The revelations that he’s an excellent cook, can talk with squirrels, and argues with the angel and devil on his shoulders only add to his charm.

 

It’s also nice to finally encounter a film with some bravura vocal work from the cast. Goodman would go on to voice several more roles for Disney and Pixar, and his warm tones are a nice contrast to Spade’s whiny quips. Warburton has become omnipresent in animation by this point, but Kronk is still one of his greatest roles. Yet the entire show belongs to Kitt, who steals every scene she’s in with her purrs and large gestures.

 

This was the first of a series of films that would pull back in scale, offering the studio the chance to make better films that didn’t feature nondescript princes and princesses, numerous songs, and images that scrambled for a Best Picture win. The magic of a good Disney movie is in creating characters we want to spend a lot of time with, and giving us memorable moments. All you have to do is look across the various corners of the internet to find memes, clips, and various quotes used recycled for new jokes. The Post-Renaissance years weren’t great for the Disney studio, but they did produce a series of minor cult classics. This is one of them.

Even though it might be considered a minor effort among Disney's animated features, I think it is actually terribly underrated and, in fact, I would go as far as saying that it is actually one of their very best productions. Sure, I will give you that, it was not one of their most gorgeous movies, even though the animation was still really solid, but it is by far their most hilarious movie. Indeed, from the beginning until the very end, it is filled with some nice jokes and the whole thing is just non-stop entertaining and just really funny. On top of that, I thought that the characters were really neat as well. Indeed, for once, they finally moved on from their old formula and they gave us a really obnoxious main character. I mean, Kuzco was still charismatic and entertaining but he was really mean and messed up which was something Disney never tried before. For example, even though their version of 'Beauty and the Beast' was heralded, I thought they terribly toned down the darker aspects of the Beast and they turned this supposedly terrifying monster into some rather rude and grumpy kid. Here, Kuzco was a much more interesting character. Eventually, this approach was not really rewarded and they never really took such risks again in the future, except maybe with 'Lilo & Stitch' made just a few years later, and that's a real shame. Anyway, to conclude, I really loved this flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are eager to see something different from Disney.