Emperor's New Groove

Disney's done it again. \nIt has taken an ethnic people it doesn't understand and mocked its traditions. But unlike "Pocahontas" and "Mulan," "The Emperor's New Groove" is supposed to be funny. \nSelfish, egotistical Emperor Kuzco (voice of David Spade) fires his witch-like adviser, Yzma (Eartha Kitt), and she swears revenge. Yzma plots to kill Emperor Kuzco, but because of a wacky mix-up, Kuzco is turned into a llama, and a really lousy llama at that. Yzma's bumbling but good-natured servant Kronk refrains from throwing Kuzco off a cliff at the last minute, and a peasant named Pacha (John Goodman) discovers the "demon-llama" (as he calls the animal). Pacha's task is to get Kuzco back to the palace without killing himself first.\nAside from a few flaws, this is a good animated film. It's funny, it's cute and most importantly, it has a good moral: Be nice to people. \nThe greatest thing about "The Emperor's New Groove" is it started out with the traditional Disney formula -- big, dramatic animated feature that teaches kids an important lesson about life, complete with an entire soundtrack by Sting. But somewhere along the line, somebody decided to throw that formula out the window and just make a funny children's cartoon. And it worked. \nOf course, the title doesn't really go too well with any of the movie except the beginning; the culture depicted doesn't seem to matter much to the plot (except to add some interesting scenery), and David Spade just can't let you forget that he's David Spade. But somehow none of that hurts the entertainment value of the film.\nKitt is appropriately "frightening beyond all reason" for her character, Goodman is appropriately lovable and loyal, and Spade is the bitterly sarcastic skinny guy from "Saturday Night Live" we all know and love, even inserting a "buh-bye" into the script.\nIf you want to see a kids' movie anytime soon, make sure and catch this one. Because from the looks of the kids' movies coming out in the near future, you might as well stay home until the "Harry Potter" movie comes out in October.