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Directed by Bibo Bergeron, Will Finn, and Don Paul
With the voices of Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Kline, Armand Assante, Rosie Perez
USA, 2000
Rated PG (innuendo, brief nudity and profanity)
A LONE CRACKER ON THE SEAS,
A.K.A. THE ANTITHESIS OF EL DORADO ITSELF
Yawn. Must we go through another condescending pseudo-fruit basket of fun and morals? Must we put our children (and parents) of this world through another patronizing money machine? The latest animated feature from DreamWorks SKG is as soggy as a wet cracker quietly sinking in its own ocean of mediocrity. That is the only way I see fit to introduce this flick; it is so uninspired and such a poor recycling of older Disney films, it does not warrant much more than a silly, casual response. It’s not that the film is especially appalling. It is too ordinary to be. I think it may disappoint a few parents and a few children as well with its inability to touch the expected, usual magic of all things animated. I took my sister and her friend to see this, and "It was okay" was their only remark.
The story is half-baked adventure. Tulio and Miguel, (voiced by Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh, respectively) two Spaniard friends, stow away on Cortes’ ship, escape after being discovered, and finally get to shore. With a map, they search for the city of gold known as El Dorado, and are greeted at the entrance and are mistaken as gods. They think they’ve got it made, until they make a slip. Chel (Rosie Perez), a native woman, learns that they are mere mortals with the desire for gold, and, in search of excitement, she becomes their sidekick.
Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante), the film’s dull core villain, is the local high priest and, because Tulio and Miguel refuse to have the El Dorado people barbarically sacrificed for their glory and do not fit the descriptions of the gods made in religious books, he begins to suspect their divinity. Meanwhile, Tulio wants to get out of the city with the gold and Chel back to Spain, and Miguel wants to stay in this paradise with the natives he has come to love. Many yawns later, we get a pitiful climax with Tzekel-Kan chasing our heroes with some stone monster, yelling things to the effect of "You are not really gods! I will get you!"
By the end, I forgot I was supposed to care about the film’s plot and characters, and the culmination was a moral served up in a condescending fashion: "it’s not money that counts in life, but your experiences and lessons." The whole film leaves much to be desired. Thank goodness The Road to El Dorado is forgettable in its contrivances.
I believe this is the third DreamWorks animated film. The Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen-owned company has thrived financially with their previous Antz and The Prince of Egypt, both of which I haven’t seen. Despite the presence of great talent in this film including the vocals of Kline, Branagh, Assante, and Edward JamesOlmos, songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, and a slinky, wonderful voice performance by Rosie Perez as Chel, The Road to El Dorado is another springtime Hollywood-manufactured formulaic robot made shamelessly to pocket some money from the kids. Even the new songs of the once-great team of John and Rice, whose collaboration resulted in marvelous things for The Lion King five years ago, are only a notch above unbearable; they are tepid and lukewarm musically, and boring and insignificant lyrically.
The Road to El Dorado’s screenplay by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio features comedy that is so run-of-the-mill, it’s depressing. In a way, it’s hard to watch this movie fail because it’s so much like a comedian who’s struggling for laughs. Directors Bibo Bergeron, Will Finn, and Don Paul have fused the visual and adventure elements of Disney’s Aladdin, Pocahontas, and The Lion King, and the mythic element of Hercules, for some casual effect, but they cannot even match the mediocre Pocahontas and Hercules, both of which were at least entertaining and singular as far as animation was concerned. The animation here has some moments of triumph and glory in the El Dorado scenes, in which everything is quite colorful and vibrant, but it all lapses into the complacent rhythm and uneven flow of the movie.
I read in USA Today that this movie ran into a little trouble with the MPAA for some profane and sexual innuendo, which nearly garnered it a PG-13. There still is some obvious sensuality that remains in the film between Chel and Tulio, and it is all very unnecessary and hardly deserves discussion. The Road to El Dorado is even lamer than the little bit of controversy it instigated.
By Andrew Chan
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