Tadeo Jones 2: El secreto del Rey Midas

Reading the reviews in this in national newspapers, you'd think it was one of the worst films you could possibly see, but I saw it with my 6 year old today and all I can say is those reviews have either not actually watched the film or are biased against European cartoons for some reason. We liked enough to look up the other "Tad The Lost Explorer" on our streaming service when we got back from the cinema.

It's a breath of fresh air from the usual Disney and Dreamworks output and is entertaining for all the family (I laughed at a few parts, which is something I really appreciate in a cartoon) basically being "Indiana Jones for a younger audience", which is perfect if you want to introduce your children to that kind of genre before they're old enough to watch those live action movies.

I Went to see this with my 8 year old daughter and both really enjoyed it. Very easy to follow.

Loved the bird and dog friendship but did find the romance sub-plot between the two main characters a little weak.

I enjoyed the first one, because it was a bit different than many other anmiation movies for example from Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks etc.

what i liked

• a story and characters that stood on their own
• simple but really working lighting and rendering quality
• realy nice movement animation and sound

what i would have liked more of

• some unexpected plot twist
• i unique storyline like the first one

I sat down to watch "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" (aka "Tadeo Jones 2: El secreto del Rey Midas") with my 8 year old son.

It turned out that we actually both quite liked the storyline and were more than adequately entertained by what we saw here. Not only did "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" have an entertaining storyline and plot, but it was also an abundance of fun and laughs. Most of which were produced by the mummy sidekick.

Neither of us were aware that this was not the first movie, but I guess it doesn't require you to have watched the first movie, because I didn't feel that I was missing out on anything, well aside from the story of how Tad and the mummy got to know one another, as it was hinted to in the story.

The animation style was quite good and it was a nice treat to look at on the screen. We saw an English dubbed version of this, which actually worked out well enough, despite it being a dub. Usually dubbed versions suffer from a terrible voice acting performance, but not "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas".

"Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" has something for all ages. My son liked it because it was, well let's just be honest, an animated movie. I enjoyed it for the comedy, storyline and its light-hearted similarity to "Indiana Jones" in a sense.

Considering the fact that this movie cost only ~9 million euros, Lightbox Animation Studios did a terrific job. Characters are developed with tremendous passion and the charm of Momia could rival even Pixar productions. The story is full of warmth and emotion, while the romance sub-plot has the right balance of superficiality and drama. There is not much depth, but it's expected for an U rated movie.

However, while the main characters are animated with love, the environment feels too empty and unpopulated. Even though the car chase scenes take place in the middle of the day, there are barely any visual dynamics in the background, e.g. people. At times, the movement of distant objects/characters looked quite wonky and unrealistic, breaking the immersion of the scenes.

Overall, Tad 2 is a decent movie for the younger audience.