El Dorado

Small Indiana Jones. With each piece of clock in perfect place. Charming hero, beautiful girl friend and dusty companion. South America as arena. Subject - mythical city of gold. So, a nice puzzle. Bad guy - part of a conspiracy. Corrupt army general. Wonderful images. And running, gun fires, old machines for protect artifacts, dusty story and victory of good guys. A tale with well known lines. But not boring. For the meeting of elements from a way to rebirth adventures in a gray world. For the errors , many childish of script. For the large eyes front of spectacular fight scenes. For the ambiguous line between good and bad. And for Luke Goss in the role of without soul brute, for a Shane West as a kind of James Dean the explorer.El Dorado is perfect excuse for this action movie.

"El Dorado: Temple of the Sun" is an adventure movie in the likes of "Indiana Jones", "The Jewel of the Nile" and "The Librarian". Set in South America, the movie kicks off in high speed and never really slows down.

The story is pretty much similar to what you would find in the afore mentioned movies. A treasure/relic hunter is looking for an ancient artifact (or in this case, the City of Gold), and being chased in hot pursuit by someone wanting the very same thing. So it is pretty much textbook script here. But despite it being an "Indiana Jones" clone, the story did work out well enough. Only one thing did puzzle me; who was the 'bad guy' working for? And truth be told, at the end when you find out, I was shaking my head in disbelief, because that was a bit ridiculous. But you will see for yourself...

Being set and filmed in South America was great, because it was like you were there yourself, running around in the jungle looking for treasure. And the sets throughout the movie were nice as well.

One thing always amuse me, and that is how poorly bad guys are at shooting when trying to hit the main characters of the movie. It is so wrong. When they shoot at other non-important people, such as the native people, they have perfect aim, but once the guns turn towards the heroes, the aim becomes way off. That is so old and so cliché that it just doesn't work anymore.

The cast in "El Dorado: Temple of the Sun" was pretty good, and most memorable were Shane West (playing Jack Wilder), Luke Goss (playing Col. Sam Grissom) and Natalie Martinez (playing Maria Martinez).

If you like adventure movies, then "El Dorado: Temple of the Sun" is definitely worth checking out, because it is action and adventure from the very start and till the very end.

A-Team and Airwolf are much better than this though!

Adventure Movieslike Indiana Jones work, because you never know whats coming next with the situations the characters find themselves in - there are many plot twists interlaced with 'fish out of water' characters who react with emotional range to their various situations - for example being trapped against a dead end wall in a temple with the Nazis/Baddies after them, Jones and his companions would show panic and terror before accidentally grabbing the right spot on a nearby sculpture which reveals a hidden door, perhaps by the woman trying to hit him for getting him into this mess! In Indiana Jones characters are highly antagonistic to each other, providing not only humour but dramatic opportunities and interest for the viewer. You become involved in the characters and the basic pantomime 'good and evil baddies and myth' story works.

NOT THIS MOVIE THOUGH!

This has none of the above - cardboard cutout characters are stuck in place with a total lack of reactions and humorous situations. The plot flies from basic pantomime 'good and evil baddies and myth' A to B, the goodies chased by the baddies without any emotional interest for the viewer.

A scene typifies the whole film - the characters are trapped against a dead end wall with the baddies after them, Jack, the female lead and his geek sidekick are seemingly trapped and dead. But of course they are not. Jack simply hits the right spot so the wall raises and then comes down and hides them. There is no explanation how he knows to do this. But you knew that is exactly what would happen, being used to it from watching the simple plot and scriptwriting. It's rather boring.

There are no real problems for the hero, Jack in the script - unlike Jones (played as a character with human faults) he is played as a alpha male real man who can simply do anything. The squeaky geek sidekick will of course never get any serious attention of the woman while a realman like Jack is around. Jack is played as a deadpan character with few emotions who can always push the right lever or button. The woman is strong willed but always falls in place next to Jack. All this is set in stone from the start. There is little in the way of antagonism or any dynamic between the characters while the baddies are after them, and for all these reasons a total lack of interest from the viewer. Add in a few explosions and helicopters like in the A-Team/Airwolf episodes and there you have it. 3/10.

Jack Wilder (Shane West, "Nikita") teams up with Maria Martinez (Natalie Martinez) and the computer expert Gordon (Elden Henson, "Mockingjay") to search for El Dorado, the city of gold. Mercenary Grissom (Luke Goss) is supposed to stop him by all means, because the gold owners fear for a drop in value of their gold if a huge additional amount gets on the market. This is not making any sense, because historical artifacts would be locked into a museum, not molten and sold on the regular market, but anyway, it gives the villain the big advantage that he needs not to steal the artifacts, only destroy them, which allows more firepower. Grissom tries a partnership with General Mata (Julio Oscar Mechoso), Jack Wilder also gets an offer he can't refuse, and soon we have at least 4 different parties pursuing and fighting each other over the gold before it's even been found...

In the first half, they try at least to set up a story, but in the second half they give up and fill the time with explosions, gun battles and car chases. Given the poor effects and poor acting (especially Shane West seems to be limited to staring at a certain angle which makes his forehead look impressive), entertainment at a very mediocre level. If you are looking for a good Indiana Jones rip-off, look elsewhere.

I am a total sucker for adventure movies. I have watched all the best of them; Indiana Jones; Romancing the Stone; National Treasure; The Da Vinci Code; King Solomon's Mines; Jewel of the Nile. And now I have watched one of the poorest attempts at replicating them: El Dorado.

As it say's in my headline summary "El Dorado" is based on a very poor script where the "archaeology" plays an extremely small role. Because of that it seems that the director has decided on filling the very obvious plot holes with endless and pointless chases, shoot outs and ever changing hostage and blackmail situations. The problem is that no matter what happens and how many twists are used to try to confuse or shock the viewer we always know what is going to happen long before it does and all of the smoke, screens and mirrors never really cover up the fact, that there really isn't much of a story to engage in.

These shortcomings are furthermore enhanced by the very poor acting displayed by the majority of the actors. Some of the minor supporting actors are actually quite good, but they just can't carry the weight of the rest of the cast and the very poor script.

Add to that the lacking of either skill or vision (possibly both) in the special effects/CGI section of the production crew. The CGI portions of the movie (especially the ending) are so bad, that most people would expect more from the graphics of a 10 year old, cheap PC game.

On top of all these shortcomings comes the ending of the movie which I will not reveal. I just want to say that it is bad. Very bad. In fact so bad and so badly thought through, that you can't help but wonder how (in actual history) the Incans could have possibly lost to the Spanish when they had such great powers on their side.

It seems to me that the best part of the movie is actually the stunts and chases which are rather imaginative and well performed, so if you like that, you might like the movie - it's actually the reason why I gave the movie 3 instead of just 1 star...

So just to sum it up, El Dorado is a very bad movie, based on a very bad script, with rather bad actors, containing very bad effects and CGI and with a very bad and unfulfilling ending.