How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2000 film The Emperor’s New Groove.
Story
Irreverent to the point of absurd, this movie does a great job at setting up all its major plot points with clever jokes and gags. Simple plot that seems like unconnected gags at first, but ties everything together by the end.
Score: 1
Characters
I love these characters. Kuzco is a perfect jerk, Pacha is the sweetest, Yzma is great evil, and Kronk is utterly adorable. Each plays their part perfectly and I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the roles.
That being said, it’s a bunch of white people playing South Americans (with the exception of the kids and the fantastic Eartha Kitt.) The movie is quite clearly supposed to be set in a fictional version of the Incan Empire, but that’s only set dressing and doesn’t mean anything.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The dialogue in this is burned into my subconscious and speech patterns. The jokes are so expertly crafted that even after having seen this hundreds of times, I still laugh.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The detail in the animation and the background jokes are excellent. It’s pretty and very well animated.
They got Tom Jones and Sting to do songs for this. If I had a complaint, it’s that a few times the music was a little generic turn of the millennium Disney. But that still means it was excellent.
Score: 1
Fun
We waited a little to let my oldest start to understand the wordplay and it was worth it; she giggled throughout. I laughed a lot, as did the rest of the family. This is just a fun movie.
Score: 1
Overall
A classic comedy that relies as much on word play as it does physical gags. It has aged impressively well and is tightly scripted.
I loved this movie when it came out and still do.
Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5