El camino hacia El Dorado

What can I say? The Road to El Dorado kept me hooked right from the very start, proving to be an amazing adventure filled with action, comedy, color, breath-taking imagery and music. After The Prince of Egypt, I wasn't too keen on another Dreamworks animated film. Don't ask me why, but Prince of Egypt just failed to reel me in. El Dorado on the other hand has restored my faith in the studio.

I'll keep this short and to the point. El Dorado seemed to deliver the goods in every aspect. The music was great and certainly enhanced the mood and scene, Tim Rice and Elton John did a fantastic job with the instrumental score. The characterisation was done quite well, and you could really sense the strong friendship that Tulio and Miguel had with one another. Chel was also a character favorite of mine, and Rosie Perez did a great job providing her voice! The artwork was also exceptionally good, with the colorful Mayan themes and designs providing an amazing backdrop for the story. Of course the film is not without its fair share of eye-candy, the special effects were excellent and Dreamworks didn't go overboard with them. The story was also a nice change. For once it wasn't the tired, rigid old formula of "good guys meet bad guys, conflict, defeat bad guys and everyone's happy". I mean..sure everyone is happy in the end...and there is the token good guy VS bad guy routine but Dreamworks seemed to mince it up somewhat and introduce all-new elements.

Surely it has its flaws, you say. Well in all honesty, I'm hard pressed coming up with any. I didn't exactly love the character design for Tulio and Miguel but that's just being incredibly petty....

All in all, The Road to El Dorado was very refreshing and a welcome change from the usual Disney-formula-based feature. As for comparisons and similarities with the "brilliance of Disney", I believe that there is no need for that talk. I ask you, why do we need more Disney? The Road to El Dorado shines in a light all of its own.

I watched this movie with my younger brother (who is in his late teens) and we both loved it. This movie, and Titian AE, are part of an interesting new trend- animated films that appeal to teens and adults. I was stuck by how much this movie wasn't for little kids- the whole Tulio/Chel relationship notably- but since I'm not a parent, I don't have to be bothered by that. I got the impression that this movie was animated only because it is easier(ok, cheaper) to draw the elaborate settings than it would have been to constuct sets that showed as rich a setting. My only qualm with the movie is the awful musical numbers that all animated films insist on having in them- why do they all strive to be musicals? But all in all, it's a great movie. If you too find yourself drawn to such shows as Batman Beyond, you might appricate this animation that isn't geared towards small children.

With a sensational animation style and brilliant performances, The Road to El Dorado charms its way into glory by easily being one of the most fun movies i've seen in quite awhile. First off, any company challenging Disney at their own game let alone their signature 2D animation style has usually had no luck at ever capturing that same Disney magic- but with El Dorado I say it succeeds tenfold. Not only is the animation breathtaking and colorful, but every single frame is just so well done. You can see the heart and soul put into creating this film, and not even just in the animated sense. The characters of Miguel and Tulio are about one of the most charismatic duos i've seen in a film like this in a long time, and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen due to their incredible charm and fun personalities. Not only that, but they were also brilliantly voiced by Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh who just give so much spirit to the role it's hard not to admire it. Rosie Perez also does a fantastic job in her role voicing Chel, who is just about the most gorgeous female character i've ever seen in an animated film. I'm not simping, you are. The music is also quite good, with a soundtrack composed by the great Elton John. It may not have as many familiar songs as The Lion King, but it stands strong in its own right. The pacing is just so well done, you can admire how entertaining it is even if some flaws feel rather predictable and formulaic along the way. We have familiar tropes here and there, but in the end, The Road to El Dorado is as charming as a film can be- and easily deserves more praise than it received on release. Its colorful and imaginative and completely earns its spot among fellow 2D animated films.

My Rating: 8.6/10.

First TITAN A.E., now EL DORADO. I can´t believe another brilliant animation movie was trashed down by the critics. Trully unbelievable, specialy after inferior works, (in plot or character development) like TARZAN were a big sucess. Marketing realy is a powerfull thing...and being politicaly correct apparently still determines a sucess in the States.

I´d read so many bad reviews about EL DORADO, that i started to believe in them myself, and i was ready to never going to see it, altough i´m a big animation fan. As it is very common in the american reviews, this time EL DORADO was the chosen victim and so it seemed that every critic was playing follow the leader when reviewing it. After reading so many bad reviews , i doubt that some critics ever saw the movie before they wrote about it. Or at least they definetely didn´t saw the same movie i did !

Is there an "european" version or something playing here in Europe ?...

Anyway i went almost dragged to the cinema by my kid this saturday afternoon, and now i´m glad i did, for it´s realy the best animated film i´ve seen in recent years (as good as TITAN A.E. and Princess Mononoke).

And for someone like me who got a little bit disapointed with Chicken Run, and annoyed by yet another politicaly correct animated feature in Disney´s Tarzan, EL DORADO made me think that there is still magic and thrills in modern animation.

I started to suspect that this movie was going to be diferent, when i got in the theater, and i noticed that at least about 80% of the room was filled with an adult audience, and very, very few children, wich for a Saturday afternoon matinée of an animation movie is a particulary strange setting. Did someone knew something about this movie i didn´t ?...

By the end of the movie, i began to understand what was so special about it. First of all this is NOT a Disney movie as so many people seem to think, but a Dreamworks production. The plot altough aparently common for this type of story, ends up being much better than it seems at first glance, because of the characters development and the little details around them all, wich i won´t reveal because part of the pleasure in this movie is exactely the discovery of those scenes. And EL DORADO might look in style like a Disney product, but fortunely has none of those politicaly correct so called educational moments wich infest all Disney products. Contrary to Disney, EL DORADO even has an original story, and doesn´t use the same as in Lion King, wich is the same in Tarzan, wich was re-used again in Dinossaur, etc... EL DORADO doesn´t treat kids like braindead morons but instead presents a good original story in wich they even have to think to realy apreciate the movie wich can only be a good sign.

A good detail , is that, there isn´t realy a "bad guy" so the children can´t separate right away all the plot into good guy Vs bad guy as usual, making them pay more atention to the story to discover what is happening.

I don´t want to spoil anything, but go watch this movie , and notice how the character of Cortez was presented and used in the story without falling into the usual trap of the Disney style villain, and giving a very authentic historicaly correct feeling to the plot Another good twist, is that there is another "bad guy" in the EL DORADO story, but not another abstract villain placed there just to fight with the heros and loose. This second "villain" even has a logical reason to be a bad person, and he´s not just bad just because. Even what happens to him by the end is not the usual cliché used for the villains in the usual Disney movie where the bad guy always has to die to pay for his wrong doings. Well...this time...go watch EL DORADO and you´ll be surprised how cleverly the story uses both "villains".

This is one of the best, surprising and most inteligent moments in this excelent underapreciated film as it connects perfectely the fantasy with the historicaly events of that time.

But there is one thing i can bet was responsible for the faillure of this movie in America. And yes i´m talking about the "erotic" jokes scatered in some scenes and the "sexual" tension as a reason for conflict between the main characters. I can bet that those innocent little subtil scenes must have made plenty of puritane people in America grab hold of their Bibles and cover their kids eyes with thy covers, while the fathers themselves drooled over the sensual curves of the female leading character and the mothers complained how imoral this animation was. I´ve read an hilarious american review, claiming that this movie would incite kids to homossexuality and bigamy ! (WHAT ?!!! Because of the relation of great friendship of the male characters or their relation with the girl ? ARE YOU PEOPLE NUTS ?!! )

I think DreamWorks took a bold risk, in creating an animation including those (innocent "erotic") jokes. They risked and they lost, but that doesn´t mean that their movie is as bad as the reviews say it is. And i don´t agree with the acusation that EL DORADO is nothing but a pale imitation of Disney style. EL DORADO took the Disney visual style and produced a movie way ahead of everything Disney ever did, thematicaly speaking. If anyone still wants to compare this to disney then the only thing i can say is that it´s movies like EL DORADO that Disney should be making, instead of using and re-using over and over again the same plot and formula, withou taking any risks or adding anything realy new to their products.

Think of EL DORADO as a much better and inteligent "Disney" movie with a little spice. One day all animations will be like this.

Of course, i was missing it too, until about fifteen minutes in.

Okay -- the title is "THE ROAD TO El Dorado" Hands up, everyone with whom that rings a bell.

No?

Okay -- its stars are two fast-talking con men who get out of trouble by faking fights with each other,and who *almost* play pattycake at a point.

Still no bells ringing?

How about if i point out that, at one point, our heroes' images are briefly morphed into the faces of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby for about two frames?

Right.

This is a tribute to/animated version of those hilarious (if you're in the right frame of mind) "B" comedies starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (and Dorothy Lamour in a sarong -- does Chel look any more familiar, now?), all of which were entitled "The Road to..." somewhere or other.

Nothing in them was meant to be taken seriously, and very little in this film is.

I have to agree with a number of reviewers who say, with varying degrees of indignation, that this is not a kids' film.

Duh.

It wasn't meant to be. It was meant to ba a general-audience, PG-rated film.

WILL you people PLEASE get it through your heads that "animated" does not, necessarily, equal "kids' movie"?

Animation is just another film-making technique, to be used to make any kind of film the animator wants to make, and if you think that animation is automatically for kids, check out... oh, say... "Akira" or "Fantastic Planet" or "Heavy Metal".

"Road to El Dorado" is an excellent all-ages film, (with the caveat that is IS a PG-rated one, and that you ought to think about what you want your kids to watch) and anyone who sees anything bad or prurient in the scenes that everyone has been complaining about should take a close look at themselves...