Our movie opens with
a talking llama who is clearly miserable and unhappy, lost in a jungle and
drenched by unremitting rain. The llama
proves to be Kuzco (David Spade), Emperor of the Incas. It turns out that Kuzco was transformed into
a llama by Yzma (Ertha Kitt), an advisor whom he unceremoniously fired. Though Yzma had intended Kuzco’s death, her
goofy minion Kronk (Patrick Warburton) blundered and allowed an unconscious and
transformed Kuzco to escape. Kuzco awoke
to find himself in the care of Pacha (John Goodman) and blamed him for his transformation. That makes no sense based on the fact that
Kuzco is our narrator and has already narrated the part where he was
transformed by Yzma. Anyway, Pacha finds
himself torn on what to do. The emperor
had declared his intention to demolish Pacha’s village in order to build a
summer palace. Even though Kuzco refuses
to negotiate the fate of Pacha’s village, Pacha agrees to lead the emperor back
to the capitol in search of a cure.
The movie is
generally fun, filled with action, humor, and male bonding. However, it has too many anachronistic
aspects. At one point, Kuzco and Pacha
stop at a diner – complete with menus and salt shakers – and there’s a scene of
a put-upon short-order cook. Also, it turns
out that Kronk was in the Boy Scouts, or an Incan equivalent with similar uniforms. When Kuzco is an unconscious llama, he falls
into Pacha’s wagon to escape Kronk. The
problem here is that Incans didn’t have the wheel, and therefore would have no
wagons. Nor did they have glass, so all
those vials of potions in Izma’s lab should be clay instead. Oh, and cork is from Europe and Africa, so
the vials shouldn’t have corks. These
repeated and plentiful anachronisms ruined an opportunity to get immersed in
Incan culture.
Though this movie
arrived in theaters in 2000, I didn’t get around to seeing it until last
week (September 2015). Sorry about the delay in my
review.
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