I wont admit to being a big Disney fan, as for my taste most Disney cartoons are just a bit too ’’nice’’ if you know what I mean. There is usually a love story and the good always win, that sort of stuff. Also most Disney cartoons have too many songs in for my liking. But The Emperor’s New Groove is not like an ordinary Disney cartoon, it is more of a comedy, which I have become a little obsessed with I have to admit!
I’m back! For those of you who want to see the film skip reading the next section as I will reveal a little about the plot of the film, which may spoil your viewing pleasure.
The Story
Basically this film is about an Emperor of a South American country, his name Kuzco, he is young and living his live to his own groove! The only problem with Kuzco is that he is completely obsessed with himself and everyone in the country doesn’t mind apart from one villager. His name is Pacha; his gripe with Kuzco is that he wants to build Kuzcotopia (a birthday present for himself,
’’complete with water slide!’’) on the hill that his village is located.
Pacha meets with Kuzco and finds this out, this isn’t good news but there is nothing that he can do apart from try and figure out how to tell the village. Meanwhile a plot to kill Kuzco is taking place, but the only problem is that Kuzco isn’t killed, but turned into a Llama! In the process of trying to kill Kuzco, Yzma and Kronk (the would be murderers) fail to do so! Kronk is ordered to kill him but he has an attack from his conscience and Kuzco ends up with Pacha.
When Pacha gets back to his village he discovers Kuzco. Kuzco wants Pacha to take him back so that he can be changed back by Yzma, he doesn’t know she wants him dead. Pacha agrees to on one condition, that Kuzcotopia is built elsewhere! What follows is a hilarious and outrageous adventure to get Kuzco turned back into himself again!
The Humour
This is one of those film, which not only will make kids laugh but will also make adults laugh for an entirely different reason. I love films like this, it is almost too stupid in places, but that makes it funny! They even end up making fun out of themselves during the film.
An example of the humour is when Kronk is taking Kuzco (the Llama) to kill him. He is sneaking along (humming his own theme tune!) when people come along. He stands the theme tune has stopped but the humming continues, the camera then pans away to see a wall with two hands pointing at Kronk!
This film will make you laugh the whole way through and if you watch it enough times you will have lots of one line sayings stuck in your head, just like I did! For example? ’’Yeah I’m a Llama again’’ and ’’Stinky Llama Face’’ and ’’Bad Llama’’, well basically all to do with Llama’s but there you go!
Cast Information
The following people leant their voice talents to The Emperor’s New Groove, oh yeah...
David Spade - Kuzco
John Goodman - Pacha
Eartha Kitt - Yzma
Patrick Warburton - Kronk
Tom Jones - numerous characters
DVD Information
Running time: 75 minutes (approx)
Wide screen format: 1:66:1
Dual Layer DVD (meaning when changing from one layer to the next there may be a slight pause, usually cleverly placed so you don’t see it)
Special Features
With The Emperor’s New Groove 2-Disc Collector’s Edition you are graced with a whole load of added extras. For s start there is a whole separate DVD dedicated to extra features, which is the difference between this and the normal edition of the DVD.
Disc One contains:
• The Film
• Audio Commentary with the Filmmakers
• Rascal Flatts Music Video featuring the song ?Walk the Llama Llama?
• Action-Adventure Set-Top Game (featuring the voice talents of Yzma and Kronk)
Disc Two contains:
• A fast-paced behind-the-scenes tour of how a modern Disney animated film is made!
• The Development Process
• Story and Editorial
• Layouts and Backgrounds
• The Animation Process
• Putting it all together
• Music and Sound
• Make your own tracks
• Sting’s Making the music video featuring the Academy Award nominated song ?My Funny Friend and Me?
The set-top game is quite amusing; if only the first time you try it out! Basically you have to answer questions about the film in order to move Kuzco (who is now strangely a Llama again!) back to the city to find the secret lab to change him back again! As I said this is quite funny the first time as you have the voices of Yzma and Kronk, but this is only a small game.
This is one of the best features about the DVD, is a well thought out tour of basically how The Emperor’s New Groove was made. This tour is not dull as the people who take you on the tour, the producer Randy Fullmer and director Mark Dindal, are both very funny! This tour takes you through the whole creative process of making the cartoon from the first rough sketches to choosing songs and even the editing process. You can even view some of the scenes which were cut form the film! Some of these had even started to be drawn out and coloured before they were cut, but most are storyboards, which were cut.
The interface to the DVD is very easily laid out and very simple to use, even a child could use it, which is good as this is a kid’s film, well sort of? Anyway back to the interface. As you might expect from this cartoon it is quite a funny interface, with Kuzco doing his little dance that he does in the film. Also a few scenes from the actual film have been cut with it to make the process of choosing a section a lot more fun, if that is possible? Well I think so anyway!
My Thoughts
This is by far the best Disney cartoon that I have seen for a while and just proves that you don’t need computer animation to make a cartoon good. All you need is a good, funny story with not too much singing in it! It’s not too much to ask is it, for more Disney cartoon’s like this is it? Any way if you haven’t seen this cartoon then why not? In my opinion this is the funniest cartoon that I have ever seen, it shows a ’’hip’’ side to Disney that I hope we see more of.