Review of The Emperor's New Groove (2000) by Jon N — 27 Feb 2011

With the horribly positive reception of recent horrible animated Dreamworks pictures like "How to Train Your Dragon", I've heard a variety of ridiculous claims to the effect that Dreamworks is now "outdoing" Disney, Pixar, and the like "at their own game"--Disney and Pixar's "game" being to provide serious, sophisticated, intelligent stories, Dreamworks' being to make clever bits of low art for the unwashed masses, apparently. Make of that what you will.

When I saw "The Emperor's New Groove" today, a rather inexcusably tardy ten years after its original release, I realized that Disney outdid Dreamworks "at their own game" more than a decade ago. BRILLIANTLY. "The Emperor's New Groove" has the feel of a typical campy Dreamworks animated film, but it takes the technique to heights that *actual* campy Dreamworks animated films have never achieved. The screenplay reads like something written collaboratively by Mel Brooks and Deadpool; the fourth wall isn't so much "broken" as it is chipped to bits, glued haphazardly back together in a vague mockery of its former towering strength, haunted by the vengeful and tormented spirits of its original builders, exorcised of said spirits, and finally bulldozed for good, having all of its pieces sold to passing tourists as pet rocks. It's not even always being used solely for comedy; the most pivotal moment of the titular Emperor's development is conveyed to the audience through a fracture in the fourth wall (one that crosses over with a preexisting fracture, in a clever and--dare I say it--*bold* new direction for fourth-wall-breakage that I have never seen done before.).

By all rights I ought to have hated it. It was using the Dreamworks formula that I so despise, and its protagonist was so loathsome at the start that I did not think it would be possible for him to realistically develop into a likable character by the end of the film. But I loved it. It worked, somehow, and it worked spectacularly. It wasn't just good fun, it was an innovative masterpiece of comedy. I cannot recommend it highly enough.