The Road to El Dorado - Ray's Review

The Road To El Dorado (2000)
89 min
Colour - Widescreen

Directed by Bibo Bergeron, Will Finn, Don Paul, David Silverman, Jeffrey Katzenberg (Wow!)

Written by Ted Elliot (Shrek, Aladdin, Treasure Planet)


Starring the voices of:
Kevin Kline as Tulio
Kenneth Branagh as Miguel
Rosie Perez as Chel
Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan

Plot Synopsis:

Two eccentric con artists, Tulio and Miguel, are shooting craps in the sun-squelched streets of 16th-century Spain when they win a map charting the way to El Dorado, the lost City of Gold, and see it as their ticket both to adventure and an enormous fortune. With the map in hand, they stow away on the ship of evil Spanish leader Cortez, bound for Cuba. By chance, the two men are thrown off course and find themselves in a lush and vibrant rainforest replete with exotic animals, hidden waterfalls, and traces of an Indian civilization. Stumbling upon the gate to El Dorado, Tulio and Miguel are thought to be gods by a group of Mayan natives, and they are led into the heart of the city for a special welcoming ceremony. There they meet the adorable Chel, a con artist herself, who practically bests them at their own tricks. In the end, the two friends must choose whether they will stay and enjoy life in the magical city of El Dorado or make off with the gold and return to Western culture as rich men.

Ray's Opinion:

I tend to go through phases of watching a particular genre of film. As some of you may have gathered I just went through a Western phase, before that I went through a show-off-my-home-cinema phase watching loud, glossy boy's films like The Rock and Independence Day. Now I feel an animated films phase coming on - I don't know exactly what it is that draws me back to animated features, the child within perhaps? Whatever the case, I love them (which isn't hard with titles like The Incredibles around) and am looking forward to delving into a few more in the near future and reviewing them here.

The Road to El Dorado is the second animated feature from Dreamworks after the successful and impressive The Prince of Egypt (which I will be reviewing shortly too). What I love about El Dorado is the fact that there is no main character, this is a film about supporting characters and freed from the restriction of having some earnest, do-gooding central character like most animated films, makes this feel refreshing and different. The major lack of Disney type moral lessons is a relief too (though of course there are some moral elements).

For me there is one huge draw card to El Dorado and that is Kevin Kline. I absolutely love Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda and his strongly recognisable voice is incredibly suited to animation. He constantly had me cracking up and on more than one occasion sounded very Otto like. Kenneth Branagh is excellent too and the witty banter between him and Kevin Kline is consistently funny. For example, after escaping some guards they leap in some barrels and are suddenly hoisted through the air to be placed on a ship, Tulio asks "What's happening here?", Miguel responds "We're both in barrels - that's the extent of my knowledge".

There are some elements that may put off overly sensitive parents such as bare bottoms (oh my) and mild cussing - "Holy Ship" Tulio exclaims as a ship almost crushes them at sea. Rosie Perez's character Chel is fairly curvy too and uses her womanly charms to her advantage. Considering what's on TV these days, I hardly imagine anything contained in this film has the capacity to shock or offend children (but parents on the other hand, well...).

The animation is gorgeous and fluid, mixing traditional cel animation with CG elements fairly well. The palette is rich and looked incredibly good on my LCD TV, with no compression artifacts to be found anywhere. In fact the DVD in general is of stellar quality, with a well mixed and aggressive 5.1 soundtrack to show off your stereo too.

The only real drawback for me is the music. Considering it's the same team that worked magic on The Lion King, it's quite a shock that the soundtrack here is bland and feels out of place. Whenever an Elton John song came on I was immediately pulled out of the experience. Personally, I would have preferred an instrumental soundtrack.

As the film progresses, Tulio and Miguel are swamped by story elements and as a result the amount of jokes dwindles. More focus on humour and less on the predictable story would have been nice. But overall, El Dorado is a great animated film, presented flawlessly on DVD and full of hilarious scenes thanks to the vocal talents of Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh (and thanks to the expressive animation). It's a surprise that such a light hearted and funny film like this was so bashed by critics and overlooked by audiences. I believe it deserves far more attention than it got.

8/10