With just three features over 25 years (#4 prepping), this likable, if slightly relentless, late hand-drawn Disney effort, a modest commercial success, is probably writer/director Mark Dindal’s high-water mark. The simplest of tales (young, arrogant ruler finds humanity after living as a llama) supports acres of gags played in a more ‘cartoony’ style than was typical for the period. With sharp ultra-articulated body joints & wild physical exaggeration, it reps a departure in ‘90s style much as 101 DALMATIANS did less kinetically ‘61. Here, with some surprising links in pacing & craziness to the great Tex Avery (his post-Looney Tunes/M-G-M period), and not only SCREWY SQUIRREL shorts.* Snarky David Spade, better suited for supporting roles, works to diminishing returns as a one-note/one-joke emperor fighting usurpers Eartha Kitt & Patrick Warburton (this funny pair echoing Anita Morris & Bill Pullman in RUTHLESS PEOPLE/’86) after drinking that llama potion. Learning thru comic adventures & close calls on the road how the other half lives, thanks to a friendship-of-convenience with John Goodman’s larger-than-life man-of-the-people. Goodman the sole character in the film drawn to suggest indigenous South American features. How different this all would look - and sound - now! Still, winning modest fun.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Tex Avery’s SCREWY SQUIRREL only fitfully available online. (He can be very Politically Incorrect.) But search under ‘SCREWY SQUIRREL Stream’ and you’ll find some shining examples @ Vimeo, DailyMotion, etc.
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