By Matt Soergel
Florida Times-Union

Disney's new animated movie, The Emperor's New Groove, began life as something called Kingdom of the Sun, which publicity notes say would have been "a dramatic story inspired by pre-Columbian legend and prominently (featuring) an ambitious song score by Sting."

Drama.

Pre-Columbian legend.

"An ambitious song score by Sting(!)"

Good grief. Can you imagine anything more awful?

Luckily the people at Disney came to their senses and came up with a movie that kids will actually like. In fact, some -- I'm thinking those 7 to 11 or so -- will love it.

What's not to like? The Emperor's New Groove, the tale of a conceited teenage emperor who gets turned into a llama, is zippy, irreverent, adventurous and pretty funny, with little sign of any ambitious song cycle.

Plus it saves a big role for Patrick Warburton, who played Elaine's wooden-headed boyfriend, Puddy, on Seinfeld. He plays a similarly dim guy here, one of three bits of inspired vocal casting.

The first is that of snarky David Spade, who plays the teenage Kuzco, the ruler of a vaguely pre-Columbian culture. He's a selfish, cynical wisecracker who's a lot like, well, like David Spade. He even says "toodles" instead of goodbye. He's in almost every scene, so it's all David Spade, all the time. You may disagree, but that worked for me.

Then there's John Goodman, whose deep voice is terrific for Pacha, a nice guy peasant who keeps helping Kuzco, even after the young ruler's been turned into a llama.

Warburton is Kronk, a well-meaning nitwit who's in the employ of an evil wizard named Yzma (Eartha Kitt). Kitt possesses one of the great voices of humankind, but her character here is the most unsatisfying, only because it's such a familiar Disneyesque one (you can see a lot of Cruella De Vil in her).

Her character improves, though, as she undergoes a transformation in the final moments of the movie, one that'll have the intended young audience in spasms of delight.

And that's what it's all about, isn't it? A good thing Disney figured that out before it was too late.