The Emperor's New Groove

(The Disneycember logo is shown, followed by clips of The Emperor's New Groove)

Doug (vo): When I saw the previews for The Emperor's New Groove, I just said "OK, I'm done. No more Disney. They have clearly given up. What? David Spade is a llama? Really? This is your movie? These are the people who brought us Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and the Lion King and... David Spade as a llama?! No! Just no!". But after years and years of everybody telling me "You gotta see The Emperor's New Groove. You gotta see The Emperor's New Groove.", I finally broke down and I put it on. And...it's better than I thought but I don't know if that makes it good. At least not for me. Well, OK, let's talk about it.

Story
Doug (vo): David Spade plays an emperor that's totally full of himself and a complete jerk. So an evil sorceress and her bumbling sidekick try to put him out of his misery and take control of the crown. But they accidentally slip him a potion that turns him into a llama instead of killing him and, well, they try to kill him anyway. But the sidekick messes up and accidentally lets him get away. So, the llama comes across a peasant played by John Goodman. As you'd imagine, they don't get along, they backstab one another and, yeah, it's pretty much a buddy-buddy comedy. Do I even need to say what's gonna happen in the end? They're gonna go on their road trip, they're gonna become friends, they're gonna figure something out about one another, and of course, they're gonna defeat the bad guys.

Review
Doug (vo): I guess what people really like about this movie is all the adult humor and fourth wall jokes. And I guess a good chunk of the time, they do work. I mean, I can't think of any jokes where I was just smacking my head saying "Oh, God. Really? They said that?:. But I can also think of many jokes where I didn't laugh that hard. It's probably non secret I'm not a big fan of David Spade and yeah I'd be lying if I said I liked him a lot here. But much like Rosie O'Donnell in Tarzan, he's not THAT annoying. John Goodman is...John Goodman. Yeah, just sort of his typical nice guy, you know, it works but I've seen it before. The side characters I guess are just the people they come across on their journey and I don't remember too many of them. But again, I don't remember any of them being super annoying. Honestly, I just don't want to see Disney do a buddy-buddy road trip movie. I mean, it's Disney. I'm expecting great, big, grand things or if they are going to do a comedy, a great, big, grand comedy. If you want to see a buddy-buddy road trip movie from them, that's fine. But when I hear Disney, I think grand animation, I think the best of the best. Not...(sighs) David Spade as a llama. So, really, I think everything in this movie is just kind of okay. With the exception of one element: the villains. Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton are freakin' hilarious. They make this movie. Every scene with them makes me laugh and makes me laugh hard. It's such a peculiar team up but you know what? It really works. The voices, the expressions and especially the animation on them are just wonderful. In fact, that's something I should bring up. The animation in this, as comedy goes, is really, really good. The timing is very fast and the line work is really good, so I will give the film credit for that.

Final Thoughts
Doug (vo): But like I said, the only thing that really stands out for me are the villains. In fact, I really wish the movie was just about the two of them. But as it is, it's not bad, it's just your typical buddy-buddy road trip movie like I said. And if you're looking for a Disney version of that, I guess you'll like this fine. But it doesn't do much for me. Like I said, not as bad as I thought, but just nothing spectacular for me.

[Kuzco runs through a crowd of bowing servants as the theme song ends.]

Kuzco: Ha! Boom baby!