Disney DVD
Region 1
Format : Widescreen 1.66:1 enhanced for 16x9 television
Sound : Dolby 5.1; DTS 5.1
Length : 77min
Cast (in credits order)
David
Spade....Emperor Kuzco/Kuzco Llama/Kuzco Turtle/Kuzco Parrot/Kuzco Whale (voice)
Eartha Kitt....Yzma/Yzma Kitty (voice)
John Goodman....Pacha (voice)
Patrick Warburton....Kronk/Kronk Angel/Kronk Devil (voice)
Wendie Malick....ChiCha (voice)
Eli Russell Linnetz....Tipo (voice)
Kellyann Kelso....Chaca (voice)
Bob Bergen....Bucky the Squirell (voice)
Tom Jones (I)...Theme Song Guy (voice)
Patti Deutsch....Waitress (voice)
John Fiedler (I)....Old Man (voice)
Joe Whyte....Official (voice)
Directed by…Mark Dindal
Writing credits
Chris Williams (story) & Mark Dindal (story) David Reynolds Roger Allers
story
Matthew Jacobs story
Randy Fullmer....producer
Don Hahn....executive producer
Patricia Hicks....associate producer
Original Music by…John Debney David Hartley Sting (songs)
Film Editing by..Tom Finan Pam Ziegenhagen (as Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland)
Casting by…Matthew Jon Beck..Mary Hidalgo Ruth Lambert
Production Design by…Paul A. Felix
Art Direction by…Thomas Cardone.(co-art director).Colin Stimpson
Tod C. Marsden....production manager
Art Department
Stephen J. Anderson... artistic supervisor: story (as Stephen Anderson)
David T. Blum....artistic coordinator
Natalie Franscioni- Karp....artistic supervisor: background
Dan Hansen....artistic coordinator
Vera Pacheco....artistic supervisor: clean-up
Jean Christophe Poulain....artistic supervisor: layout (as Jean- Christophe
Poulain)
Sound Department
Tim Chau....sound designer & supervising sound editor
Albert Gasser....sound editor
Nils C. Jensen....sound editor
David Kern....sound editor
Mel Metcalfe....sound re-recording mixer
Shawn Murphy....scoring mixer
Terry Porter....sound re-recording mixer
Paul Silver....music editor
Donald Sylvester....sound editor
Dean A. Zupancic....sound re-recording mixer
In
a country that is not quite Peru of the Inca, Emperor Kuzco (David Spade) is a
couple of days from his 18th birthday and a complete spoiled brat.
He has summoned Pacha (John Goodman), head of a village not too far away,
to tell him that the village is to be destroyed to make way for Kuzco’s summer
palace (complete with water slide). The
emperor’s advisor Yzma (Eartha Kitt) and her ‘aid’ Kronk (Patrick
Warburton) have upset Kuzco by doing his job.
Yzma is fired by Kuzco. Trying
to get rid of the emperor Yzma gives Kronk a poison to put in Kuzco’s drink
– except the potion turns him into a talking llama. Pacha makes his way back to his village with an unknown extra
bundle on his cart, a bag
containing the Kuzco-llama
The Emperor’s New Groove was Disney’s attempt to make an out and out comedy
cartoon (or animated feature as Disney like to call them).
Despite the best efforts of the animators, story people, and in fact
everyone else, the dead hand of the Disney Management culture nearly suffocated
the idea. Disney were never
very good at just comedy. Even the cartoon shorts of Mickey, Pluto and all were more
whimsy then plain funny. The
features were all stories – usually with songs – which were supposed to be
good for the family, which in the old days meant good for little kids and
nothing to upset the parents. Where
Warner Brothers had the mayhem and surreal world of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road
Runner and Wile E Coyote and MGM had the sadistic violence of Tom and Jerry,
Disney were the wholesome bunch.
So what about
the film.
When it comes to gags Disney have had as good writers and artists as anyone
else, the problem is the ‘Disney Message’.
The wholesome message has not been laid on carefully and thoughtfully, it
has not been laid on with a trowel, it has been shovelled on.
Right there, thunk, in the face (like one of the gags) – “you have
got to think of others” – “you cannot be mean and happy” – “you have
got to help one another”. There
is nothing wrong with messages if you have the correct way of sending them, just
look at Princess Mononoke.
All American cartoon features are made in sequences – that is: parts of the
action, songs or otherwise, are storyboarded and drawn and filmed: then when
these are complete bridges are built to link everything together.
(actually a growing number of live action films are being made that way
– boy does it show). The skill is making the transition from one scene or
set up to the next in such a way that the viewer does not notice/get board/go
out of the cinema to buy a popcorn/or in case of Disney Cartoon the youngsters
decide to go to the loo. This is
where ‘Emperor’s New Groove’ failed.
The various main sequences are not just clever they border on brilliant.
The look of the film, the characters and the jokes – both visual and
audible is fantastic but the joins not only show, some actually look as if they
were done for some other film.
The styling, layouts, characters and general look of the film are wonderful –
the bright colours, the look of the palace, the use of genuine Inca art for the
motifs – all gel, and in fact require more than viewing to take it all in.
Then of cause you start to notice the steady stream of visual gags you
missed first time round – like when Yzma finally gets Kusco to drink the
poison – her drink is also poisoned – so she pours it into a pot containing
a cactus, after the unexpected transformation the shot of Yzma shows that the
cactus is also now in the shape of a llama (this one of the few visual gags
mentioned in the commentary). Although it is not in the credits I would assume
that the backgrounds have been created by ‘Deep Canvas’, a computer tool
used by Disney since ‘Tarzan’ (1999) – this may have been mentioned on
disc two, but I will explain why I could not watch it later.
The voices are very good, John Goodman and Eartha Kitt, have done it before and
as you expect their characters look like a cartoon version of themselves,
however I don’t know who David Spade and Patrick Warburton are in the real
world, but they do an excellent job with the two other main characters.
As in fact do all of the voice cast.
This was supposed
to be a review of the R1 ‘The Ultimate Groove 2-Disc Collector’s Edition’
unfortunately the only DVD’s that my DV88 refuses to play have been Disney DVD
discs, disc two with all the ‘how we did it’ bits would not play so all I
have been able to do is watch the film and listen to the commentary.
The quality of the picture is excellent – just as expected from a
modern transfer – the colours are beautifully rich, the black level as sold as
can be with no blemishes on the print and not a sign of compression.
As usual I preferred the DTS track, although for those who cannot play
DTS the Dolby 5.1 track perfectly good, with the sound stage placed in the
centre and the ambiance and surround not being smothered by the music.
I felt that the original music fit very well, but I am not a fan of
‘celebratory’ composers and the efforts by Sting were rather ordinary.
But then as the songs are not an integral part of the film it probably
does not matter. The
commentary is interesting – but they don’t tell nearly enough about the
actual making of the film. That of
course would be on the other disc.
‘The Emperor’s New
Groove’ was not a successful film. The estimated release cost was $125m with a US gross of $86m
(rentals would be about 50% or $43m) one of the reasons could have been
that there are 5 credited story writers.
Also – the title is a bit meaningless (some marketing executive trying to be
‘hip’) perhaps they should have stood by one of the two working titles they
used: ‘Kingdom in the Sun’ or
‘Kingdom of the Sun’
Despite its limitations I enjoyed his film greatly, what could have been a great
comedy ended up being smothered by Disney morality – bit a pity really.