Movie Review: The Road to El Dorado

Originally written August 9th, 2014.

I seem to have the inability to learn from my mistakes, because I have yet again listened to Tumblr’s movie suggestions. This time I watched the 2000 Dreamworks movie The Road to El Dorado. I have become infected with the Dreamworks smirk. Someone call a doctor.

For once the Tumblr hivemind was onto something. This isn’t actually that bad of a movie. For a kids’ film, it’s pretty solid. As long as you don’t mind the usual cliches that run rampant in kids’ movies, you ought to have a good time.

The movie follows two con men who find the legendary city of El Dorado. The citizens of El Dorado mistake them for gods and then hijinks ensue. It’s a straightforward and predictable story, but the characters make up for it. The two con men befriend one of the Mayans, and the three have really good chemistry. There’s a lot of fun banter between them, and most of the jokes hit. Surprisingly the movie steers clear of the usual kids' movie potty humor and is mostly just funny dialog and slapstick. It’s refreshing to see that for a change.

The other strong suit of the movie is the animation. I wish Dreamworks still did traditionally animated movies, because this movie looks fantastic. The character designs are great, and the locations are gorgeous. The animators did a great job capturing the look of Mayan artwork and architecture. It’s a very unique look, and anyone interested in animation is sure to pleased with it.

Overall, it’s a pretty good kids’ movie. The songs are painful to sit through and there are a lot of narrative cliches, but the same could be said of most kids’ flicks. If you have children or siblings that want to watch a movie, this is a good one to put on. It’s entertaining enough if you have to watch it too, and it’s not going to rot your kid’s brain or anything. It’s not the kind of movie you necessarily need to seek out, but if you get the chance to watch it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised