It’s time for a fairly quick animated adventure. The Emperor’s New Groove is what you would call a basic film that has a good amount of comedy in it and fun characters. You’re not going to get your next award winning classic here or anything like that but it’s all pretty good stuff. At the end of the day, the movie is satisfied being at this level and there’s nothing really wrong with that. It even beats some of the more ambitious titles.

The main character is Kuzco, the young emperor. He is incredibly spoiled and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This allows him to easily fire anyone and displace whoever he wants in the various villages. So long as he is happy, then nothing else matters. It is easy to see why nobody likes him. One day, he fires Yzma, an old lady who had been getting a little too power hungry. Kuzco underestimated just how much she wanted power though as he gets poisoned by her and turned into a llama. Her assistant Kronk was supposed to murder him but instead Kuzco finds himself at the poor village where Pacha lives.

Kuzco had previously told Pacha that he was going to wreck the man’s village so that he could have a summer home. Yet now Kuzco must rely on Pacha’s generosity if he is going to survive the journey back to his castle. Can Pacha convince Kuzco of the error in his ways or will this emperor be stubborn all the way until the end? The character arc itself here is pretty straight forward. You will just need to see if the film can really convince you of his personality shift within 70 minutes. That’s a rather tall order after all, especially when he starts off by being so antagonistic.

Now, with Kuzco’s very life hanging in the balance you can choose instead to think that his big character shift is really out of self preservation. It’s not really the film’s message but it can work out. While Kuzco is a total jerk for a lot of this, he’s a pretty fun one so I was still able to enjoy him as the main character. He is also able to break the 4th wall on more than one occasion. It would have probably been good to have let him start having some heroic moments earlier on in the film though. That would have made the character arc a little smoother.

Pacha is the other main character here as he tries to help Kuzco be more heroic but it is an uphill battle. It is really difficult to work with this guy but Pacha does his best to always be patient. He should have been honest with his wife about the possibility of losing their house at the start though. If he wasn’t able to pull off this journey then she would have been really taken by surprise. You always want to be representing a united front here. Pacha doesn’t have a ton of character beyond wanting to do the right thing though. It also feels like he isn’t quite as upset with Kuzco as he should be.

I get being good natured but he really takes it to some extremes. On the villains’ side we have a solid duo. The main villain is Yzma and she has been through a lot. Kuzco is always insulting her appearance and in her old age she doesn’t have much of a counter to this. She has lived with a lot of resentment for years and so she is finally making her move now. She can be distracted easily and has to put up with Kronk’s mistakes but still ends up being a compelling villain. She is rather effective with how many strides she makes during the film. She really took all of the characters to the brink and ultimately just needed to finish the emperor off herself. If she had done that near the beginning of the film then everything would have played out very differently.

Then we have Kronk who is a lot of fun. This guy may not be the smartest around but he has a lot of talents under his belt. The guy is a great conversationalist, has a terrific memory, and he is even a great cook. So while Kronk may not be the best at recognizing sarcasm or hidden nuances to a plan, he gets the job one. He’s also just a nice guy in general who unfortunately is loyal to a fault. If he had been working for a hero the whole time then I have no doubt that he would have made for a good ally.

Now it does feel like a bit of an excuse to say that he’s only a villain because of Yzma. At the end of the day he is still making his own decisions and is responsible for all of them. Hopefully after the events of this film, he will be someone that is more reliable as a hero or at least someone who isn’t actively helping in assassination planning.

The songs are okay in the film but I wouldn’t say that any of them stood out. They’re okay and catchy enough while you’re watching the film but you won’t exactly be looking any of them up on Youtube afterwards. I thought the animation was pretty good though. It’s all very smooth and consistent the whole time. The colors are also very striking outside of the animation itself. So on this area the film definitely managed to hold its own.

It’s a very safe style of animation. Like the rest of the film, it isn’t anything groundbreaking but is still solid all the way around. The writing is also solid with a lot of good banter and jokes going around the whole time. The pacing is quick and that’s part of what makes this an easy watch. It’s the kind of movie where you can just turn off your brain and enjoy it. There are no scenes that will make you shake your head or anything like that. It’s just a lot of fun and that’s the most important element of any movie.

Overall, This was a pretty fun film. There’s a lot of appeal here with just how fun and fast the humor is. I always enjoy a film with good banter and due to the premise you have the two main characters enjoying a lot of that throughout. The villains even have their own comedic dynamic going on. Naturally you do need to be a fan of a good comedy adventure in order to like this film but that goes with the territory. Since the film is well crafted, you never feel like you are missing out on a more serious adventure. We even get a reasonably intense climax here. So if you haven’t seen this film yet because you’re worried that it won’t be able to hold its own with other titles, I wouldn’t worry about that. The movie can stand on its own.

Overall 7/10