It would be easy to dismiss Kronk's New Groove as yet another product of Disney's dark era of cheap Direct to Video sequels — take a popular animated movie, throw in an Excuse Plot to bring everyone together again, revisit a bunch of familiar story beats, then burn a DVD and send it off to retail for a quick buck.
And you'd be right.
Kronk's New Groove is a nakedly cynical cash grab, and it doesn't even try to pretend otherwise. The first 20 minutes, especially, boil down to revisiting the most iconic gags from The Emperor's New Groove and hoping that comedy nostalgia will distract viewers from the highly predictable plot and uneven pacing (A flashback within a flashback? Seriously?).
And yet...
The second act is a bit better, building up a predictable romance plotline with a cute parody of romance movies. It's all still very predictable, but it manages to be entertaining by some decent gags and not recycling material from the first movie. It's hardly a spoiler to say that the second act ends with a Love Interest breakup, just as it's not a spoiler that everything will work out in the end.
The third act is where Kronk's New Groove truly becomes entertaining as the various plot lines come together in a chaotic crash of comedy. Sure, everything gets tied up in a neatly predictable ending, but at least it manages to be funny while doing so, almost as an apology for the plodding start of the film.
By the low, low, standards of direct-to-video movies, Kronk's New Groove is merely okay, but it remains a pale shadow of the original movie. When the credits rolled, I kept thinking of how much better Kronk could have been if more time and affection had been given to improve its various weak points.
WesternAnimation A half-baked serving of sequelitis
It would be easy to dismiss Kronk's New Groove as yet another product of Disney's dark era of cheap Direct to Video sequels — take a popular animated movie, throw in an Excuse Plot to bring everyone together again, revisit a bunch of familiar story beats, then burn a DVD and send it off to retail for a quick buck.
And you'd be right.
Kronk's New Groove is a nakedly cynical cash grab, and it doesn't even try to pretend otherwise. The first 20 minutes, especially, boil down to revisiting the most iconic gags from The Emperor's New Groove and hoping that comedy nostalgia will distract viewers from the highly predictable plot and uneven pacing (A flashback within a flashback? Seriously?).
And yet...
The second act is a bit better, building up a predictable romance plotline with a cute parody of romance movies. It's all still very predictable, but it manages to be entertaining by some decent gags and not recycling material from the first movie. It's hardly a spoiler to say that the second act ends with a Love Interest breakup, just as it's not a spoiler that everything will work out in the end.
The third act is where Kronk's New Groove truly becomes entertaining as the various plot lines come together in a chaotic crash of comedy. Sure, everything gets tied up in a neatly predictable ending, but at least it manages to be funny while doing so, almost as an apology for the plodding start of the film.
By the low, low, standards of direct-to-video movies, Kronk's New Groove is merely okay, but it remains a pale shadow of the original movie. When the credits rolled, I kept thinking of how much better Kronk could have been if more time and affection had been given to improve its various weak points.