"The Emperor's New Groove"-- Not Spade's Movie

Disney's latest animated feature tries to regain the Disney animated magic the studio seems to have lost. Unfortunately for "The Emperor's New Groove," its attempts to do so are way too obvious, and a lack of a marketing team may make this Disney animated film the biggest flop yet-which it doesn't deserve to be.

Although "The Emperor's New Groove" is a funny and smart film, let's take a look at the faith Disney put into it. First off, coming off of the surprise Thanksgiving flop "102 Dalmatians" and the summer flop "Dinosaur," "The Emperor's New Groove" almost seems like it came out of nowhere so Disney could claim at least one of 2000's movie seasons for itself. Secondly, the ads for the film are, to say the least, a joke. While the advertising people over at Disney may have thought the trailers were funny, they came across to audiences as stupid. In one scene we have a bratty teen emperor upset because "his groove was thrown off" and the next scene we see the Emperor as a llama. Does that make sense? Of course not, but those are the ads people saw on television. While the in-theater ads that ran before "102 Dalmatians" explained the story in greater detail, since no one saw "102" no one knew "The Emperor's" real plotline.

Finally, unlike any other Disney animated feature, "The Emperor's New Groove" has almost NO merchandising. There aren't even any cute, cuddly llamas kids can buy at Target or the Disney Store-- nothing. The only "Emperor" merchandise one will find is the CD (and don't ask me what songs are on it), cheesy plastic toys in McDonalds' Happy Meals and computer games. Since Disney has merchandise for everything it ever made, this is definitely not a good sign.

For those who have realized that "The Emperor's New Groove" is in theaters now (and believe me, I know many who don't know this), I think we all will agree that "The Emperor's New Groove" isn't a horrible movie. It has completely likable (and dislikable) characters, a lot of comic relief, and a well-done plotline. However, Disney rushes the pace of the film a bit too much, goes too overboard with some characters and hurried the animators way too much for "The Emperor" to ever be ranked amongst Disney's brightest masterpieces.

The first thing viewers will notice when they see "The Emperor's New Groove" is how fast the plot moves. If you blink chances are you will miss something because the action in the film is literally BOOM BOOM BOOM. While the plot does slow down midway through the film, the first half is so rushed viewers either will be left confused or unsatisfied at how untouched certain plot points were. Furthermore, the animation looks as rushed as the script. There is little background in the film other than blue and green screens, and attracting an audience used to lavish backgrounds from "Tarzan," "The Lion King," and "The Little Mermaid," one might feel like they are in a time warp and back in the "The Rescuers/"Oliver and Company" days of animation.

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