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The Emperor's New Groove Review by Harry I have a thing for stupid movies. There’s two kinds: movies that are stupid because they took themselves too seriously, then movies that are stupid for the simple reason that they were always intended to be stupid. The Emperor’s New Groove falls into the latter category, with a big kudos from myself. David Spade plays Kuzco, a smarmy, spoiled twerp who happens to be the king of the world. He has no parents, and there was no mention of him, but if he had written the Bible, he would have started the universe anyway, so there’s no need. He makes the mistake of firing his evil assistant Yzma, who, along with her stupid—yet hilarious—assistant Kronk, set a plan into action to kill Kuzco. Simple, yes? Yzma’s plan is an uncomplicated one: "I’ll turn him into a flea. Then I’ll put that flea in a box, put that box in another box, then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives . . . I’LL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER! IT’S BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT! Or, to save on postage . . . I’ll poison him with this!" Said plan is executed, but because the label is slightly crumpled up, the skull on the poison potion actually turns out to be a llama. Kuzco becomes such llama, and hijinx begins. He’s accidentally taken home by a peasant named Pacha whom he just humiliated, and the two of them work their way back to the palace, all the while being chased by the villains and struggling to work together. Disney originally intended for this movie to be serious. Then they changed their minds. Thank the good Lord. This movie is a glorious Disney return to stupid, pointless animation. Remember Merry Melodies when nothing made sense, but it didn’t ned to because it was funny? This is that, but humorously enriched by David Spade and Patrick Warburton [Kronk]. None of the scenes really make any real sense, and that is actually acknowledged in the movie at least three times, but that’s what makes it funny. This is truly the only animated film that had me in stitches the entire time. It was so against Disney standard. The end of movies with potions and witches usually involves the hero and the villain usually fighting then the villain turns into some gigantic creature. This happens here, or at least it’s set up that way, then all of a sudden the screen pans out and Yzma discovers she’s actually been turned into a kitten. The numerous creature changes poke inside fun at Disney itself, because it does stuff like that all the time. There are so many one-liners and zingers here that I was quoting this movie for weeks. It’s almost like this was a David Spade movie with Disney animation. I didn’t know Disney was capable of this kind of humor. This is so unlike them, even to the point of the main character also being the wisecracker, while the sidekick is the straight man. It was just plain topsy turvy. But that’s why it worked.
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