The Road to El Dorado (2000) Reviews

The Road To El Dorado is a fun film from Dreamworks. Is it the best Dreamworks film? No, I don't think it is as evocative or as stirring as Prince of Egypt, as zany or as (quite) original as Shrek, as witty or as charming as Antz, as ambitious or as mature as Spirit or as audacious or as sweet as Over the Hedge. But is it the worst Dreamworks? No, I was disappointed with Shark Tale, which was nice visually but suffered from a meandering script and an unoriginal plot line, and I think it is better than Shrek the Third, which felt tired in comparison to its first two predecessors.

If I had any negatives for this film, they are very few. One was that, the banter at the beginning between Miguel and Tulio came across as a little on the contrived side. My other complaint is that the ending was somewhat abrupt, maybe it is just me but I felt that the film could've done with a more rounded finish.

These flaws aside, there is a lot to enjoy. The animation is stunning, the backgrounds are colourful, the colours are vibrant and the character movements are sharp. The animation of the lost city of gold itself was above mesmerising.

I know people have complained about the songs and the score. We know from the Lion King, which is not only one of my favourite animated films but one of my favourite films ever that Elton John can write good songs. I actually liked the songs here, they were somewhat catchy and memorable. And the score from Hans Zimmer is great. Zimmer is one of my favourite film composers, and while he has done better work, his score is rousing and exciting enough.

Others wrote about the story being dull. Fair enough, but bear in mind people complained about the story of Spirit:Stallion of the Cimarron being dull. The plot here was at least coherent, and while not perhaps the most fast-moving of all plots, does have some humour to keep the kids amused. The script is not too bad, there are some entertaining parts, and while some of the banter is a tad contrived other parts are witty and very humorous. The part with the chief playing ball with the village children was indeed adorable.

The characters are engaging enough, and the voice acting was great. I liked the characters of Miguel and Tulio. Miguel is more light hearted and Tulio while more into wealth than Miguel has real humanity. Both Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline did a wonderful job putting their wit across and were entertaining as a result. Chel has to be one of the most vivacious female characters in any animated film, along with Jasmine, Esmeralda, Tzipporah and Odette. She is the seducer of El Dorado, willing to help Miguel and Tulio at a price, and Rosie Perez, a delightful actress was perfect. Then there is the antagonist, Tzekel-Khan, the high priest and speaker and to say he is nuts is an understatement. Armand Assante provides his voice effectively.

In conclusion, a visually audacious and fun Dreamworks film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Una película predecible hasta el cansancio, con tus numeritos de música, chistes y personajes; sin embargo, de vez en cuando la película logra ser divertida y el apartado técnico es impresionante.

Even though it seems to be a long time ago and most of us have forgotten about it but, at first, DreamWorks animation started out with some good old hand-drawn animation but expect for ‘ The Prince of Egypt’ which was financially and critically successful, the rest didn’t work very well and after only 4 hand-drawn features, they completely left out this medium and focused solely on CGI animation (just like Disney). Eventually, out of this 4 movies, this movie was their biggest flop ever and it has the dishonor to be the only DreamWorks Animation picture not to earn a profit at the box-office. I think it’s too bad for two reasons. First of all, this flick was actually pretty good. The animation looked really good and it was pretty neat to make a story about this subject. My guess is that even though the story was entertaining enough, it was still too pedestrian and after decades of sugarcoated Disney features, the audience want a little bit more from those stories instead of all always the same characters going through basically the same issue over and over again. I still think it ‘s a real shame though that they dropped this way of making animated features. Basically, when they noticed that Pixar popularity kept on growing with every movie and above all, after ‘ Shrek’ massive success, they found their new cash cow and nowadays, you have actually an overdoses of CGI features. Not only from Pixar and DreamWorks (whose features are not always amazing) but also from maybe 5 or 6 different studios and, in my opinion, the quality is not always there (even with Pixar nowadays..) and they make those movies above all because they are usually profitable. Anyway, this movie was basically a victim of this new hype and that’s too bad because it is actually pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in animated features.

Even though I missed the first 10 minutes of this movie I found it to be funny and rather enjoyable. The animation is good and the characters are engaging throughout.

One problem I had was that everyone seemed to speak perfect English with a slightly British accent at times... It just doesn't seem believable to me that a seemingly untouched civilization on an island would speak immaculate English and nothing else. The Spanish characters only seemed to say two words of Spanish in the whole thing too. I know it's a children's movie, but other films have handled the issue well in the past (such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire).

Anyway, overall it's a decent enough movie and I would certainly watch it again.

This movie is hilarious. Very few movies make me laugh out loud, and this one has made me laugh out loud many, many times. Every time I see it (and since I have kids, we've seen it a lot), I laugh. The dynamic between the main characters, Tulio and Miguel, is terrific. The female lead is an awesome character, too. She's curvy, brave and very smart. The chief is also interesting. He's a huge, huge man, but all the stereotypes about fat people do not fit him at all. The horse is a great addition whose anticts do not detract from the human character's charm.

All in all, it's very enjoyable, fast paced and beautifully animated. And I hope you, too, laugh out loud. :)