The Emperor's New Groove Review

Disney is responsible for some of cinema's most incredible features in history. They pretty much wrote the book on animated movies. Disney is also responsible for some of the most deplorable rubbish imaginable that ever hit the direct-to-DVD shelves. An oft overlooked animated movie they did remarkably well on was The Emperor's New Groove (2000). It was unlike many of its predecessors in that it wasn't an epic drama, it was a full length slapstick silly movie that the legendary Chuck Jones, director old of the Loony Tunes shorts, would have been proud of. This great and fantastic film puts me in stitches every time I see it!

Vain and cocky Emperor Kuzco (David Spade) is a very busy man. Besides maintaining his "groove," and firing his suspicious administrator, Yzma (Eartha Kitt);he's also planning to build a new water park just for himself for his birthday. However, this means destroying one of the villages in his kingdom. Meanwhile, Yzma is hatching a plan to get revenge and usurp the throne. But, in a botched assassination, courtesy of Yzma's right-hand man, Kronk (Patrick Warburton), Kuzco is magically transformed into a llama. Now, Kuzco finds himself the property of Pacha (John Goodman), a lowly llama herder whose home is ground zero for the water park. Upon discovering the llama's true self, Pacha offers to help resolve the Emperor's problem and regain his throne, only if Kuzco promises to move his water park. Kuzco's perfect world becomes a perfect mess as this unlikely duo deal with hair-raising dangers and wild comic predicaments as they race to return Kuzco to the throne before Yzma tracks them down and finishes him off.

Believe it or not, The Emperor's New Groove started out as another epic as per Disney's usual standards. It was going to be called "Kingdom of the Sun" set in the ancient Incan world and feature a selfish emperor who finds a peasant who looks just like him along the lines of Mark Twain's archtypal novel The Prince and the Pauper. However, the evil witch has plans to summon the evil god Supai and capture the sun so that she may retain her youth forever. She turns the emperor into a llama and threatens to reveal the pauper's identity unless he obeys her. The emperor-llama learns humility in his new form and even comes to love a female llama-herder; and the two set out to undo the witch's plans. It would have delved into Incan spirituality and culture and been a romantic comedy musical in the traditional Disney style.

I think this sounds like a fascinating story! But following the underwhelming box office performances of Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, studio executives felt the project was growing too ambitious and serious for audiences and needed more comedy. The project was pulled and put on hiatus for a number of years, then had the script completely rewritten, the actors recast, the whole thing went in a completely different direction, and had a new title slapped onto it. It resulted in a very light hearted cartoonish romp that had above average animation for its day. The Emperor's New Groove certainly doesn't aim high or strain too hard; it is completely at ease inhabiting it's pretty miniature realm.

The two things that make this movie so utterly fantastic are the voice actors and the animation. There is a brilliant all star cast here, and all of them have experience with comedy. David Spade plays a fantastic sarcastic short guy. John Goodman is a quintessential bighearted teddy bear. Eartha Kitt can be so zany and expressive that everything she says is a hoot. Patrick Warburton has a distinctive voice, and often plays a surly tough guy or a very dim-witted one. Warburton had roles in television shows before The Emperor's New Groove, but he was such a lovable and hilarious part of this movie that every time I have heard his voice after seeing it, I instantly get excited and say, "It's Kronk!" Everyone gets hilarious lines in this movie and no one outshines anyone else; they are all at the top of their game here and it is simply amazing.

The animation is classic 2-D hand drawn cell animation and it's pretty solid. The art has a simple color scheme and doesn't focus too much on shading. This gives a Saturday morning cartoon quality to it. The backgrounds look more detailed than the characters do and there's lots of pretty designs to see. The spastic way the characters are drawn and animated, couples beautifully with the voice actors' performances. Nearly everything they do, both grand and subtle, are funny. Everything from casual exchanges of dialogue to the screwball action is uproarious, thanks to some skilled animators and talented voice actors.

I dare say that Yzma and Kronk steal the show in every scene they are in; they've got to be some of the best, albeit funniest, Disney villains ever. At first Yzma's plan to kill Kuzco is to transform him into a flea, put him into a box, mail the box to herself, and then smash it with a hammer. But then decides poisoning him would be better and save on postage. Kronk keeps forgetting the plan, gets distracted making spinach puffs, and is anything but subtle when Yzma reminds him of their objective. The scene that always gets me is when Yzma and Kronk suspect Pacha of hiding Kuzco and try to search Pacha's home only to be foiled by Pacha's very pregnant wife and two rambunctious prankster little kids. Every time I see this scene I end up literally rolling on the floor laughing out loud and have to pause the movie until I can catch my breath.

While it is unfortunate that the original movie had a complete overhaul and was entirely changed around, the resulting movie is animated comedy gold. The Emperor's New Groove is absolutely uproarious and highly entertaining. The animation is fantastic and reminds me of classic Saturday morning cartoon shows, the voice actors are absolutely brilliant, and the resulting characters are some of the most lovable Disney creations I can think of. The plot is very simple, but that's okay. It may be light hearted, but it's so much fun to watch. The Emperor's New Groove is an outstanding Disney movie that seems to be overlooked these days. It is absolutely worth the cost of a copy to add to your home collection, but as of writing it is available on Netflix streaming. If you haven't seen this movie, you're missing out on a lot of laughs.

Is there an oft overlooked Disney movie that you are particularly fond of? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Hoodwinked Review

I've had several people (or maybe one person many times) recommend Hoodwinked (2005) to me. The trailer looked a lot like a wacky fairy tale story that was capitalizing on the novelty of Shrek. Most of what put me off was the low quality animation. I assumed it was a mockbuster; a film created with the intention of piggybacking on the publicity of a major film with a similar title or theme and is often made with very low budget. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find a lighthearted and detailed story with plenty of off the wall cartoon antics.

The recipes of the forest's goody shops have been stolen by The Goody Bandit, and many animals are going out of business without them. While the police are chasing the criminal, there is a mess at Granny's house involving Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway), The Wolf (Patrick Warburton), The Woodsman (Jim Belushi), and Granny (Glenn Close), disturbing the peace in the forest. They are all arrested by the impatient Chief Grizzly (Xzibit). Detective Nicky Flipper (David Ogden Stiers) is in charge of the investigation and each of the accused gives his/her own version of the incident. Are one of the suspects The Goody Bandit?

As I said previously, the animation here was just awful. The characters had very jerky movements and few facial expressions. Nearly everyone moved with unrealistic slowness and deliberation, or they moved with such ridiculous speed so as to seem unrealistic even for cartoon characters. The few really zany characters that actually made funny faces all made the same funny face. I have seen better animation from CGI Saturday morning cartoons that went off the air six years prior to this (i.e. Reboot, Beast Wars: Transformers). It really was distracting at times. About the only thing that looked reasonably well animated was a couple of explosions. It's no wonder this seemed like a mockbuster.

DreamWorks studios have put out some pretty weak movies in the past couple of years that displayed some good animation and a terrible story and script (looking at you, Shark Tale). But Hoodwinked is just the opposite; lazy, lackluster animation with an above average script. This seemed a lot like an old Tex Avery cartoon (who had spoofed the story of Red Riding Hood many times) combined with the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. There were so many funny lines and puns strewn throughout, it had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. And the story was more elaborate and interesting than I ever would have guessed.

The first half of the movie consists of Nicky interviewing each of the convicted suspects. The story is then told and retold from different perspectives that lead up to the Red Riding Hood story set up at the movie's intro. Weird, seemingly non sequitur events and gags happen in each one and end up being explained later in another character's account. For example, an unexplained avalanche chases Red down a mountain in her story. Later Wolf has to take an alternate route to Granny's house because of the same unexplained avalanche. Then the Woodsman tells his story, and it's not until Granny's eccentric version of things that this plot device is explained. In the end all the wacky events come together to tell one fairly elaborate story that is still simple enough for young viewers to keep up with. I was genuinely impressed by this bit of storytelling, simple as it was. It's not a deep or moving story; it's just a fun, lighthearted romp that is a step or two above most Saturday morning cartoons.

Overall, I have to say that Hoodwinked is not bad. It's got an upstart charm, a clever premise, appealing characters voiced by a terrific cast and a script that should make you laugh out loud more than once. The animation was awful. It lacked subtlety, refinement, and texture; all of which had been achieved in CGI animation years prior. It lacks some of the wit that Shrek has, but still was worth a few laughs. This will appeal much more to kids than it will to adults. There were a few times I started to get bored, but I don't doubt young audiences would eat this up. Hoodwinked is currently streaming on NetFlix. I enjoyed it for what it was. If you've got kids this is worth watching with them, otherwise you'll be better off with something that has a bit more substance to it.

Can you think of another movie where the story/script was better than the animation itself? Comment below and let me know!