Delightful

Rating: 9/10 (21 September 2018)

Found myself laughing out loud today seeing some of the sight gags of this film including Esme's laughably low boobs. Who did that? It's genious. "Scary beyond all reason." Ha! Cracks me up.
This movie has such a great character mix and I love the heroes and the villains alike. They're all a bit hapless and each have their moments of treachery which I am very partial to in animated films. I can't stand the overly saccharine and I do love me some salt and spice. However saying this I agree the humor of this movie never veered into the tasteless or flat. I think beyond all the jokes the main story was endearing, and this was never overshadowed or cheapened by crudity even though there were places where it could have been.
To get to the main story, yes the relationship between King Cusco the talking llama (David Spade) and his accidental farmer guide (John Goodman) was believable in the way they bonded and weaved between trusting and untrusting behaviors. I rather could see several of my own relationships in the kind of arc that this one went through in this film, and I could recognize several points of commonality, from the distance to the reluctant acceptance to the loss and rebuilding of promise and trust. Rather remarkable really. I don't doubt you might find something of yourself in these characters too.
I'm a fan. You might be able to tell by my high rating: 9/10. This isn't a mistake-I think there are really few films that can make you want to be a little more sociable and neighborly like this one does. King Cusco is clearly selfish but the movie goes to great lengths not to depict him as bad or heartless. He very much earns both his monikers: the movie demonstrates his acts of selfishness and his acts of perhaps something else we might consider good.
Even Esme (is that her name) is recognizable in her flamboyance and penchant for "cruel ironies."
More enjoyable is the farmer guy not averse to a bit of misdirection to save his home. This guy was getting a bit overly sweet for me but I'm glad the filmmakers recognized the deviousness he possessed. It was well done when his expression changed from increasingly frustrated to forcibly calm in an instant. I like the shades of character they could paint him in.
I consider this film a gem-it does actually convince me that the seemingly heartless may not be so. And that's valuable. I couldn't really ask for more in a film.