Cliche-ridden Nonsense

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2001)

This movie was a big disappointment. From the choice of David Spade as the starring voice to the cliche-ridden, anachronistic dialogue, I found myself groaning at every turn and was grateful when the final credits rolled. Some have likened the film to Aladdin, but I saw very little resemblance between these two movies.
I have to say up front that I can't stand David Spade, so the movie got off to a very bad start for me. His narration in a whiny voice didn't interest me in his character, and I found myself wishing that Yzma and Kronk would succeed in finishing him off--not the kind of ending one wants for a children's movie. Spade's failure was reinforced by the worst screenplay I've seen in a very long time. Tired cliches stood in for good dialogue, modern-day speech and expressions simply have no place in a movie set during the Inca heyday in South America, and the sight gags were nothing more than recycled vaudeville routines that work well in live-action, but fall flat here.
While I was glad that Disney got away from the usual song-and-dance routine as well as the stupid comic-relief characters that are stock features of its animated films, I wouldn't recommend the direction that 'New Groove' took. The storyline had great promise, and the voices of John Goodman and Eartha Kitt worked very well, but David Spade and the writing team combined to ruin a good idea. Disney wanted to make a slap-stick comedy, but I fear all the studio really succeeded in doing was making itself a laughing-stock.