Most critics like it, and for the same reason: it is faster and funnier than the studio’s usual output. Nine of the ten reviews are positive. The praise clusters on the comedy, with reviewers pointing to the pace of the gags and the snap of the one-liners, and several trace the tone to Warner Bros. cartoons and 1930s screwball farce rather than to Disney’s Broadway-style musicals. The voice cast is the other point of agreement. Eartha Kitt’s scheming Yzma is named most often, with David Spade, John Goodman and Patrick Warburton close behind, and the animation is generally called sharp and well drawn.
The spread is narrow. The one real reservation comes from Empire, which finds the gags plentiful but the film short on heart and quickly forgotten. Time Out thinks the modernising is self-conscious, though it still counts the result a success. A few reviews note the absence of grand visuals or a big score, but most treat that as a relief rather than a loss.