The Emperor's New Groove

Ever since it came out in cinemas I’ve avoided seeing this film. Even when it arrived in a bunch of DVDs for review, it came down to being the second last one I watched. My cousin got it on video for Christmas. He was playing it in the living room and all the kids wanted me, Uncle Jules who works in animation, to come and watch it with them. And here’s me with a case of the Scrooges (or case of beer, I forget which) saying "Nup!" (to much hurtful tongue poking).

Anyhow, my point is that now I feel like a right Richard, because it is actually really, really good. I really enjoyed it. I even called my cousin to see if he’d let me watch it with him now. He said he didn’t know if he could, that he had a lot on, and then I felt awkward and well… I guess I’ll have to tempt him over with some chips or something.

"Bring it on!"

All that aside, I will tell you what converted me to the good side. This story is so simple, yet so well told. David Spade plays Emperor Kuzco, who rules an ill-defined country somewhere in the Southern Americas. When he intends destroying a village to build his summer house, coincidentally his head advisor is trying to off him and assume power. With classic Disney bumbling, the job only converts him into a llama and he ends up with Pacha, a big guy from the village who now has a chance to change the Emp’s mind before he becomes human again.

With characters voiced by the big names of John Goodman, Eartha Kitt (who is perfect in her role), Wendy Malick (from TV’s Just Shoot Me!) and Patrick Warburton (‘Putty’ from Seinfeld) as the scene stealing Kronk, Emperor rates up among the best of Disney’s feature films.

This is a beautiful 16:9 transfer with absolute purity of vision. The usual animation widescreen format of 1.66:1 has made the transition to our humble screens as clean as they come and has only the tiniest instances of aliasing. These are very small and only on diagonals and structural detail, so they don’t really impede the eye at all. Naturally, as is the case with newer animated pictures, the colours are all perfect and flesh tones always look their best. It might have been nicer to see some darker skinned folks, being a jungle kingdom and all, but you can’t have everything I suppose. Shadow tones in the film are exceptional, as are the magnificent hand painted/digitally matted backgrounds. A very happy union of media that has been accomplished incredibly well to make the enhanced picture look as good as it should.

With our old favourite Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, not a sound effect is left to chance. Following the lead of other recent Disney releases, there is only one animated ‘performed’ song. Happily, this is by Tom Jones and is pretty cool and much better than the Sting offering over the end credits (ironic twist: Sting’s was nominated for an Oscar… where’s the justice?) Generally the music is good throughout the film, never overplaying the action and supporting the moments that need it. As the film features several action scenes, the music is important and has been well scored by David Hartley with Sting’s help. (And not that Sting's song is that bad, it’s just that Tom Jones is so good.)

The rest of the sound is nice and clear. There isn’t a lick of noise or nasties like that and the sound effects are put to good use, even creating a mildly surreal effect at times, which is unusual for a Disney film (but becoming more popular in films of this nature.) There are several scenes in heavy rain which work well with sound not muffling action, and Spade narrates over much of the film in a clear manner that utilises his unique voice talents. Other dialogue is fairly clean as well, especially important due to the nature of unfamiliar character names and such (the DVD cover cleverly uses all the important names so as to aid in interpretation, but even so, names are used more than usual. Can't use a cover in the cinema so that's why they did that, I guess.)

Sadly about the only decent extra in this stripped down, single disc release is the Audio Commentary. Yeesh. With seven honchos rubbing shoulders around the mic, things get a little cluttered at times, particularly as you can’t tell who from what or where from how much. As a nice little sidebar though, the creator of the show I last worked on, Bruce Smith, makes an appearance as supervising animator of John Goodman’s character Pacha and it was great to catch up with him and find out what he’d been up to since before I met him. (Editor's note: Why you shameless little namedropper!)

Otherwise, it’s a veritable feast of garbage. One Deleted Scene which could easily have been left in the film and I don’t think the explanation really does that great a job of justifying why it was cut. When a film only clocks in at 75 minutes, they could stand to leave in a one-minute-and-a-half extra piece. Follow that with a very crappy American Wiggles ripoff (with three members) performing the Music Video Walk the Llama-Llama. Follow that with the same thing, just with a kid showing the dance moves and that makes two in a row. Oh boy! Now for the Game! Oh gee, this is more like it. It’s voiced by Warburton and Kitt, at least, but there isn’t even a surprise video treat when you win. How weak can you get? Don’t answer, because they’ve also thrown in a Sting Music Video, complete with mid-song interview. Blergh.

It’s not all bad though - just listen to these satisfied extras: There's 8:40 odd of Featurette describing the research trip to Peru, character voices and the creation of CGI props. Plus, if you call in the next ten minutes you’ll also get a Theatrical Trailer that gives away the whole movie almost, PLUS oh no, wait, that’s it. Wow. Erm, call now!

The kids will love this one, as will parents who get stuck indoors with them. I really enjoyed the first part (the film), but was dragged back to Earth with the clumsy assortment of extras tacked onto the end. Disappointment soured the joy I had derived from finally watching the movie after all this time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare dip as my cousins are coming over to learn the Llama Llama...