By Mark Dindal, 2000.
Starring Bob Bergen, John Goodman, Tom Jones, Eartha Kitt, David Spade, Patrick Warburton.
Rating: 7.5/10, 6/10.
The day after I saw Lilo & Stitch, I was, understandably, feeling unusually magnanimous towards Disney. I thought, perhaps, that in recent years they’d overcome their cheesy fever and begun making quirky masterpieces, like Lilo & Stitch was. And so when some friends were going to watch The Emperor’s New Groove, I decided to take a chance on it. Even though I can’t usually stand John Goodman, even though I want David Spade to die a very slow, very painful, and above all very silent death, and soon, even though when it came out all anyone talked about was the almost impossibly lame songs written by the almost impossibly lame Sting, I decided to give it a chance.
I’m glad I did. It’s not like with Lilo & Stitch, where I’m so glad I gave it a chance that I raise my voice in a song of praise to all that is holy for allowing me to do it, but I’m pretty glad. John Goodman was in one of his rare not annoying moments, bordering almost on entertaining. Yes, David Spade was annoying, but at least I got to watch him go through hell. And as for Sting, the world was keeping secrets again. Have you ever noticed this? That sometimes the entire world will be talking about something that ends up not being true at all? Sting had one song. One. It was during the end credits. I turned off the movie. Problem solved. Even more bizarre: why the hell didn’t anyone mention Tom Jones? He had two songs (as the character in the movie, Theme Song Guy, a little tiny ball of energy who ran around singing at the beginning and end), and they were utterly fantastic. The differences between Sting and Tom Jones are as follows: Sting started out edgy and cool. Tom Jones started out neither of those, but fun and good. Sting rapidly became washed up and boring and lame. Tom Jones gradually got better, edgier, and cooler. Example: Sting made a video that was essentially a commercial for a digital camera at about the same time that Tom Jones did Sex Bomb. As far as songs go, I was disappointed that they had Eartha Kitt to work with and didn’t give her one to sing, but that’s forgivable, I suppose.
Anyway. So the main storyline of the movie, which was a kind of stereotypical reluctant buddy adventure thing, between Spade and Goodman’s characters, was not that great. It was not intolerable, and was occasionally amusing. The rest of the movie, though, was fantastic. Eartha Kitt! Eartha Kitt! And her sidekick was voiced by Patrick Warburton, the guy who played Elaine’s boyfriend Puddy on Seinfeld! The part where Eartha Kitt was planning her punishment of Spade’s character ("and I’ll put that box in another box, and I’ll mail it to myself and when it arrives I’ll SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!") is genius, I say. And the two levers at the door to her lab...more genius. In fact, looking at some quotes from the movie online ("Tell us where the talking llama is and we’ll burn your house down." "Don’t you mean or?" "Tell us where the talking llama is or we’ll burn your house down.") actually makes me want to see the movie again, which I didn’t expect.
Actually, I think the blame for its not being a great movie rests entirely on Spade’s character. It could never have been on the level of Lilo & Stitch, but it could have been very good in its own right if Kuzco hadn’t been written and voiced so incredibly poorly. As it is, it seems like Disney was just practicing and warming up for Lilo & Stitch.