*½/**** Image A+ Sound B+ (DD)/A- (DTS) Extras C
screenplay by Tom Rogers
directed by Saul Andrew Blinkoff & Elliot M. Bour
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover You know you're watching a family film when: a) father issues dominate the plot; b) it talks down to the parents in the guise of speaking on their level; and c) the whole thing is larded with pseudo-in-jokes intended to make everybody feel smart. So it is with Kronk's New Groove, a straight-to-disc sequel (to an original unseen by yours truly) that posits the Emperor Kuzco's one-time adversary Kronk (voice of Patrick Warburton) in a race against time to impress his "Papi" with the classic wife/kids/house-on-hill bellwethers of success. Alas, it's an indifferently-concocted affair, with the minor character pushing more charismatic presences to the side and leaving nothing to distract from some feeble jokes, obvious plotting, and a total refusal to bring something new to the table.
Kronk, naturally, had the brass ring wrested from his grip. He lost the house on the hill upon realizing he bought it from destitute seniors who sold it to support their "youth potion" habit–the nasty by-product of Kronk's naïveté and the skulduggery of sorceress Yzma (Eartha Kitt). And he lost the would-be wife after his troop of Chipmunk scouts sabotaged the team of main squeeze Ms. Birdwell (Tracey Ullman). But you miss most what he never had: an ounce of wit and an inch of craft. Everything about the production seems to have been done to barely-adequate levels; one gets the feeling that these were the first ideas thrown out and that the ready-to-go characters were steamrollered through animation to appear just vibrant enough to suggest a little bit of money. But while it's a gleaming product, there's no movie–just a set of tried and true reflex actions out for another turn on the treadmill.
That the whole thing takes place in ancient Incan society only underscores the laziness of the participants: since nobody's particularly sure what Incan society looks like, the animators are pretty much free to set Kronk's New Groove in a gated community circa 2005 with the occasional Flintstone inflection. Which is good news for the writers, as it releases them from the responsibility of having to work with and within a defined milieu. The film resembles every other hip-yet-not kiddie product, with terrible puns, constant underlining of non-existent "fun," and the occasional "inappropriate" material (almost-screened stag footage, sexual fear of old crones) that wouldn't come off so inappropriately if anyone were copping to the act. Your kids may not notice, but you're almost certain to groan as they laugh themselves stupid.
From a technical standpoint, Disney has pulled out all the stops for their DVD presentation of Kronk's New Groove. The 1.78:1, 16×9-enhanced image is razor-sharp and vivid sans oversaturation or bleedthrough; it's a very even and brilliantly-coloured presentation wasted on a total afterthought. Two English soundmixes grace the disc, one in Dolby Digital 5.1–which is slightly underwhelming, lacking interest in the surrounds and boasting a surprisingly powerless centre channel–and the other in 5.1 DTS. The latter is the far more sparkling and potent option, though it's working without much support from the tragically unimaginative elements it has to process.
Extras include the 7-minute "How to Cook a Movie". Therein, Warburton presides over co-directors Saul Andrew Blinkoff and Elliot M. Bour's explanation of how Kronk got his groove back. Given that the thing is aimed at kids, it's not bad: as an outline of the film's inception, it has merit, although the clowning around grows a tad tiresome. Speaking of "tiresome," let's speak of the interactive games. "Kronk's Brain Game" is a wholly incomprehensible whatzit in which you have to select our hero's choices in completing tasks before Papi arrives. (I managed to win the thing without a clue as to what was going on.) Meanwhile, "Pyramid Scheme" is a trivia quiz based on the film with three levels of difficulty that will thrill the children of increasingly bored parents. Rounding things out are Disney Movie Surfers segments on The Wild and The Shaggy Dog plus trailers for Lady and the Tramp, Leroy and Stitch, The Fox and the Hound 2, Valiant, Pooh's Great Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, The Emperor's New School, and, God save us, Bambi II.
75 minutes; G; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DTS 5.1, French DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1; CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Disney
