Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: Kronk's New Groove (2005)

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus 

Kronk's New Groove (2005)

Even though The Emperor’s New Groove(2000) was only a mild success, Disney decided to bring the entire cast back for a sequel focused around the bumbling evil sidekick Kronk. I will admit Kronk was my favorite part of the first movie so I thought maybe this could be fun.  But nope I was wrong. 

In Kronk’s New Groove we reunite with Kronk who is now a full time chef.  When he gets a letter from his dad saying that he is coming for a visit, Kronk freaks out.  Kronk desperately seeks approval from his dad and has written letters saying how well he is doing, including owning a house on a hill and having a wife and kids.  Unfortunately none of those things are true.  We see in flashbacks how Kronk ended up owning a house on a hill by defrauding some old people.  In another flashback we see how he fell in love at a summer camp but things ended badly so now he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.  At the end Kronk does learn that he has friends that mean the world to him and he wouldn’t change a thing.  Finally he gets the thumbs up from his dad he so desperately wants.  

I’ll start with the positive.  Kronk is a great character.  I love that he is a bumbling fool with a good heart, and Patrick Warburton does a great job of voicing Kronk.  Unfortunately sometimes a character only works in small doses and that may be the case with Kronk.  As the comic relief of the original film he made me laugh every time he was on screen.  But having to carry the whole movie it just didn’t work.  Or, it could be a case where the story didn’t do the character justice.  

The movie does what other Disney sequels have done and breaks the film up into vignettes.  This was done in Cinderella II and Tarzan II.  Tarzan II actually took clips from unaired episodes of the Tarzan and Jane TV show.  And that is what this felt like.  It felt like they were setting up a TV show hoping to use this as a proof of concept.  Unfortunately it just didn’t work.  The flashbacks felt kind of forced and not at all organic and it was pretty unclear how long ago these things took place.  

One of the weirdest things about this movie was the sexuel innuendo’s.  While most of them will go over kids’ heads it still feels a bit jarring while watching a Disney Direct to Video film.  The two scenes that stand out are when Kronk puts a movie in and it’s called “Stag Party” and he looks instantly embarrassed like it’s a naughty tape.  And towards the end when Kronk and his girlfriend are making bread but definitely feels like they are talking about something else.  

Overall: One of the few Disney Sequels that had all of the original cast return but that doesn’t stop it from being a mess.  The story doesn’t flow and it’s just not that funny.  Maybe it’s too much of a good things but I really think given a good story Warburton could make a great Kronk movie.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Chicken Little (2005)

Disney Movie Challenge

Chicken Little (2005)

 WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

I went to go post this review and realized I had only wrote about half of it. So I quickly wrote the rest of it. So hope it makes sense.

One of the inspirations for this blog was the list that /Film released in 2019 when Disney+ went live.  On their All 58 Disney Animated Movies Ranked they listed Chicken Little as the worst Disney film.  And when something is considered the worst it only makes me want to see it more, so I have been highly anticipating watching the movie.  While not a great movie it definitely doesn’t deserve the title of worst Disney film. 

The movie takes inspiration from the “Chicken Little'' folktale.   In that story Chicken Little is hit on the head with an acorn and claims the sky is falling.  He causes mass panic before it’s revealed it was just an acorn. The movie starts with that event but then delves into a sci-fi story about aliens trying to invade Earth and only Chicken Little (Zack Braff) and his friends, Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack), Fish Out of Water, and Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn) can stop them.   The emotional center of the story is about Chicken Little trying to prove his worth to his dad (Gary Marshall) who sees him as an embarrassment after the first sky is falling incident.  It originally was going to take place in a summer camp where Chicken Little was supposed to learn self-confidence and stop being paranoid of everything.  That film was scrapped for the story about and retooled for 2 and half years to they finally got the final story.  

Chicken Little was the first fully computer animated film released by Disney Animation. At the time the partnership deal between Disney and Pixar was coming to an end.  Chicken Little was supposed to prove that Disney could compete with PIxar in the computer animation business.  If the movie succeeded it would give Disney more negotiation power to continue the partnership.  If the movie failed then Pixar would have more leverage saying that Disney needs Pixar.  The weird thing is the movie was both a failure and a success.  While it made a lot of money it was critically panned.  So it didn’t really have an effect.  Eventually in 2006 Disney just bought PIxar and ended any competition between the two.  For a deeper dive into the making of Chicken Little check out this Collider article https://collider.com/disney-chicken-little-history-explained/ 

The premise is pretty absurd and one of the reasons why it gets a bad rap. The emotional arc with Chicken Little and his dad doesn’t really work.  It doesn’t feel like any of the emotional changes happen organically.  The whole alien invasion part has some fun parts but things just happen to them without any of their decisions really impacting the story.  The whole thing feels nonsensical.  In the end you just don’t really care.  

The biggest issue might be the film trying to incorporate pop culture references.  It not only dates the movie but feels really out of place.  Although playing the Spice Girls “Wannabe” in 2005 was probably already dated.  I did appreciate that they had a song from the band Barenaked Ladies as they are one of my favorite bands.  

Overall:

The movie is mediocre.  It has it’s fun parts but it doesn’t really hold together.  While the animation might not be great and probably felt sub-par compared to other contemporary computer animated films from Pixar and Dreamworks it’s not the worst thing I have seen.  I can see kids enjoying the silliness of it but not much in there for adults.  The emotional center of the movie should be the relationship between Chicken Little and his dad just doesn’t work.  

Crash

2005 had one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history and one of the most hated movies by critics to win recently.  For some reason critics hated Crash and it was even a surprise nominee since it had won very few critic awards before the Oscars and wasn’t even nominated for a Golden Globe (only the Sting in 1973 won Best Picture without being nominated for a Golden Globe).

Crash is an ensemble movie about racial issues. It follows a diverse group (a racist cop, a Latino who people stereotype as a gang member, to a middle class white couple who are carjacked by two black guys, and a Muslim who is trying to protect his store) on an average day in Los Angeles. We see how everyone’s actions helps create racial stereotypes and tension as they all cross paths.

I loved this movie despite what all the critics seemed to think about it. There was an amazing and diverse cast. I think Sandra Bullock gave one of her best performances in this movie and she should have got a Best Supporting Actress. One of the few awards it did win before the Oscars was the SAG award for best ensemble cast. I think it was very fitting for this movie since there was not one main actor or actress but each person was a supporting player. While it was not subtle on its agenda (which is why I think a lot of critics did not like it) I found it very thought provoking and touched on some very difficult subjects. It ended up winning only 3 awards (Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing) which is one of the lowest for a movie that won Best Picture.

The movie that had the most buzz going into the Oscars that year was Brokeback Mountain about two cowboys that fall in love and have to hide it from everyone. Another movie with some great performances especially by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal . The movie was an unconventional love story and marked the first time a story about homosexuals got such high praise. The movie won almost all the pre-Oscar awards including The Writer’s Guild, Directors Guild, and Producer’s Guild and was the first time that a movie had won all three but lost Best Picture. It did win Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score. My problem with the movie is not that it is about gay cowboys but that it is a love story. I found the movie very boring and I am just not a fan of real dramatic love stories.

There are many theories on how Crash beat Brokeback Mountain and none of the theories has to do with the fact that Crash is a better movie as I believe it is. Of course the main theory is that a lot of the older members of the Academy are homophobic and wouldn’t vote for a movie about gay lovers. This point has been made over and over and now it seems like anyone that says they didn’t like it means they must be homophobic. Another theory why Crash won was the amount of money that Lionsgate put into promoting the film. The spend $4 million promoting a film that cost $6 million to make. But it was a movie that came out over the summer and very few people saw so they promoted it a lot. My theory on it is this. I think that the largest voting bloc in the Academy are actors and this was a movie that actors loved (as evidence by its win at the SAG Awards). While directors get to vote for Best Director and Screenwriters get to vote for best Screenwriting everyone votes for Best Picture. With the amazing and diverse acting in Crash I think it won over the actors and actresses more than critics or other people. But there is no telling what happened but it was a major upset and a lot of critics are still pissed, but you don’t hear any outrage over Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan which I think is more egregious.

While there was a lot of press over these two movies there were actually other movies that came out that year. George Clooney had a big year. He was nominated for producing, directing and writing Good Night, and Good Luck (the last full black and white movie to be nominated for Best Picture) about Edward R. Murrow and for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana. With a total of 4 nominations for two separate movies his only win was for Syriana. Another one of my favorite films of the year was Memoirs of a Geisha which got 6 nominations but none for any major categories it should have at least won for John Williams Score. Walk the Line about the life of Johnny Cash was another good movie with some great performances by Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix both earning nominations and Witherspoon winning for Best Actress.

Other movies that got no love from the Academy was The Chronicles of Narinia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and The 40 Year Old Virgin (my two favorite movies of the year).

The other big surprise win at the Oscars that year was for Best Song which went to “It’s Hard out there for a Pimp” from Hustle and Flow beating out favorite Dolly Parton for “Travelin’ Thru” From Transamerica.