Review of The Road to El Dorado (2000) by Michael Y — 09 Jul 2011

Might not be a classic Dreamworks animated movie, but it hasn't aged. The Road to El Dorado is good family entertainment, though not with a great or original story, but it does the trick.

2 con artist friends, Tulio and Miguel, after being lost at sea, use a map to find the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. After searching on a mysterious island, they find the city, but with one catch: the natives think of them to be gods and they begin worshiping them. Now that they found paradise, do they escape with the gold or risk possible execution to keep up their false idolization? It's your basic story about friendship, but with a religious twist. The 2 characters have to deal with a fanatical priest who constantly tries to sacrifice someone for them because that's what he thinks would please gods. But there's a kinder and more understanding chief who Tulio and Miguel respect more. There's not a lot of originality in this movie, and it's not very climactic, but whoever thought of creating a busty Rosie Perez-like character is obviously a genious. Chel is my favourite character in this movie for sure.

The animation in this movie is pretty well. Full of colourful and beautiful scenes in an exotic land makes a very nice setting for this movie. And its details is creative and well developed. Though the movie isn't a great story, the directing and pacing is entertaining at least. It is still well paced and likable. Actually, I heard that instead of the usual voice acting style where each actor says their lines alone on seperate days from everyone else, Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh said their dialogue together to get a stronger friendship feel. You'ld expect that kind of genious from men who preformed Shakespeare. And although (it pains me to say this) this movie's soundtrack is sung by THE Elton John..... I hate to say this, but the songs weren't really that good. They were good enough, but not as good as you would expect from the legend.

The Road to El Dorado is your basic children's animated movie that contains the expected themes and characters and story angles that we're all used to by now. It's not a very original movie, but The Road to El Dorado is pretty funny and entertaining and has Rosie Perez.