The animated Disney film, Emperor’s New Groove, released in 2000 was a movie that wormed its way into the hearts of many despite the fact that, by all accounts, it looked like it would immediately flop on arrival. Not only was this during the period when Disney passed their renaissance and was starting to produce mediocre to forgettable flicks that really put their reputation in the dirt (maybe the worst that it had ever been), but the mere concept of this film seemed bafflingly stupid. A modern, pop-culture referencing, slapstick-heavy, buddy road trip film starring David Spade as a talking llama, it looked like it was finally going to kill Disney for good with the advertisements not doing much better to help the movie’s case. At first, it seemed to do just that, with the film under performing at the box office, but it managed to get a resurgence on home media, with it becoming the highest selling DVDs of 2001, and with time grew a cult following with many nowadays absolutely falling in love with this picture.  In the Inca empire, a young selfish prince named Kuzco (voiced by David Spade) loves being the centre of attention and enjoys his lifestyle of being a bratty ruler, having no regard for who he steps over to get whatever he so desires. This gets to the point where he’s willing to destroy the home of a peasant named Pacha (voiced by John Goodman) for his own selfish needs, whose cries go unnoticed behind his arrogant wants, but this attitude eventually catches up to him when his recently fired advisor, Yzma (voiced by Eartha Kitt) attempts to poison him to take over the throne, yet through a mix-up with her potions, accidentally turns him into a llama instead. After her good-hearted but dim-witted sidekick Kronk (voiced by Patrick Warburton) loses him as he is disposing of the body, Kuzco wakes up and finds that he’s stuck with Pacha back at the village, as he stowed away on his wagon whilst leaving the city. Needing to return to his lifestyle yet literally being stuck in a new pair of feet, Kuzco has to rely on Pacha to get him home and back into a human. This forces him to become a better person and realize that he maybe doesn’t want to destroy Pacha’s humble home, all the while Yzma, who is now running the kingdom, discovers Kuzco is still alive and plans of finishing the job for good. The movie seems to have become a big hit with kids and even adults in recent times, being praised even at the time by critics for being one of the few shining gems within the well of mediocrity that Disney was suffering from. As an actual movie, Emperor’s New Groove still feels largely simplistic and not as strong as it could’ve been, but through nice enough animation, competent direction and writing, and an absolutely fantastic pair of villains, it does result in a good enough movie.

The story behind this movie is pretty telling about how Disney was operating around the time and how ideas were being generated yet were never allowed to flourish to their full potential. It originally was created by Roger Allers (who co-directed The Lion King) and Matthew Jacobs, and started out as a musical epic titled Kingdom of the Sun, which would have followed a more ‘Prince and the Pauper’ style story, feature a lot less comedy and have a more dramatic scale to it (more akin to movies like The Lion King, fittingly enough) and was even going to featured songs made by English musician Sting. However, production took too long, and this resulted in a lot of stuff being altered and changed by Chris Williams and Mark Dindal (who also became the director for the film) to finish the project on time, turning it into a buddy road trip movie with more emphasis on making it a comedy. It’s hard to say if the previous concept would have been perfect if it came out as it did because it’s incredibly hard to judge given the state Disney was in at the time, but through the incomplete artwork and unfinished animations, it is safe to say that that style of story and form of presentation is much more akin to the stronger products of Disney than what was delivered in this movie. Emperor’s New Groove doesn’t really feel that much like a Disney movie, as the plot is full of familiar cliches which are handled so basically and so safely that it lacks that sense of uniqueness that comes with Disney. Even at their worst, most of their films felt like they were distinctly Disney, but this movie has such a simple outline and execution that it could’ve been created any other company, and you wouldn’t notice the difference. With that said, the handling of its basic concept isn’t really poor even if it a little standard, as the pacing is fine, the fact that it’s so hard-pressed towards being an off-the-walls zany comedy means it isn’t held down by ”dramatic” emotional moments for too long, it has a good momentum and flow going for it, and the script by David Reynolds (who would go onto to write Finding Nemo) may not result in knee-slapping jokes, but there is an occasional good one, and the film’s chaotic flashy energy matched against the wry, even slightly intelligent, dialogue and scene does result in a pleasant experience that could entertain both in the right mindset.

Even for a cast of characters within a stereotypical Disney film, these characters are shockingly simplistic from a writing standpoint. Even though some of them have pretty nice designs and house some pretty great actors, they never shake outside of the boat of what their archetypes usually do, and, in a comedy, that results in a slightly stale experience. Again, it’s hard to judge if the other version of the story would have handled these roles better, but overall, there’s just a feeling of safeness that is present amongst most of them. The idea of Kuzco is actually pretty good, as for a Disney property, it’s nice to not only see a story about a Prince instead of a Princess (that has weirdly not been done that much), but also one who from the start, is pretty unlikable and mean-spirited throughout the entire movie. Even the idea of turning him into a llama as opposed to any other more generic animal does give him a hint more memorability because of it, but there really isn’t much that separates him from similarly spoiled bratty characters of his type. He’s actually not that bad all things considered, even with David Spade as the voice, but it’s hard to say that he really works either. Pacha just feels like your generic nice soul whose quaint home life and charming farming roots and attitude should give him all the sympathies against the evil prince, but not only are he and his family relatively unmemorable as well (even wasting Wendie Malick in a relatively thankless role), but even the voice acting from John Goodman doesn’t provide anything that special or funny. It’s not like he’s bad as John Goodman very rarely is, but it doesn’t even feel like he’s trying against his other animated performances. While this movie has an overall basically passable, but not fantastic demonstration of its characters and story, there is one element of this film that has been unanimously praised by everybody for being the hands down best part of this movie, and that is Yzma and Kronk as the villains. Earth Kitt and Patrick Warburton are such a bizarre comedic duo for a movie, but they are hilarious in this flick and make it leagues funnier than if they weren’t present. They have great personalities as well as great designs, their chemistry together is fantastic, it’s a wonderfully odd pairing that pays off amazing due to both being actors who are kind of known for their bizarre yet entertaining personas, and any jokes revolving around them always hit their mark perfectly. If you take these two out of this movie, there would be next to nothing worth seeing, but since they are, it provides a ton of great material to work with.

In regard to having nothing to offer outside of its villains, that’s not entirely true. The animation for the film is pretty nice and even manages to give itself a unique style that has Disney-like elements but still enough of a distinctness to be its own thing. The character designs are sharper and feature a lot more lines and unique aspects that really make them extravagant and stand out, but it still has that smoothness that allows for great movement and fantastic comedic expressions. The comedic slapstick is also done pretty nicely here, and slapstick can easily be handled badly with poor timing and physicality, but here it’s done with a quick enough pace and smooth enough motion that it can get some decent laughs. The colors are nice, the designs are memorable, it can be slow and comforting when it needs to and fast and expressive when it needs to be, and the visual jokes are often far more impressive than anything verbal. From a lot of the lines to the style of jokes on display, to even the cast they choose, the movie is definitely trying to be more modern and not in any way trying to faithfully represent the Inca culture in a realistic way. While it is pretty annoying that it’s easy to forget that the movie is even set within Peru in the first place, it distances itself so much from the culture that it doesn’t even feel like it’s insultingly sidelined. That’s kinda how the music works too, as this type of jazzy gospel style music feels nothing like what would work for a movie set in Peru, a musical epic like it originally was going to be, or even a traditional Disney movie (even to the point of actually getting Tom Jones), but with the tone that’s set up, it works out fine.

Emperor’s New Groove honestly turned out far better than it had any right to be, but it might not be to the level that everyone holds it to. What should have been dead on arrival turned out something that children that grew up with still look back on it fondly. From a basic standpoint, the movie doesn’t really offer anything that unique in terms of a buddy movie and feels like a massive step-down in terms of what Disney is capable of, but for what it is, it’s not harmful in what it’s doing (and might still be better than a lot of the stuff put out during that time). The strongest points are its visuals and its villains, as they are the carriers of this movie with everything else being pretty sub-par for a comedy and largely underwhelming for Disney. It may not feel like Disney when watching, but it has enough fantastic moments with the villains mixed in with some generically okay moments with the leads to make it still worth a watch. Whether it’s your type of Disney movie or not, check it out and see if it truly did get Disney’s groove going again.

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