The Road to El Dorado (2000)

Directors: Bibo Bergeron, Don Paul, Jeffrey Katzenberg

Two swindlers get their hands on a map to the fabled city of gold, El Dorado.

‘The Road to El Dorado’ is an animated adventure film that will appeal mostly to a young audience, while a mature audience will enjoy the original Elton John songs, and Hans Zimmer score.

Animation movies certainly have come a long way, and today’s animated movies are simply stunning. Due to the cartoonish animation I couldn’t really get into the movie as much as I wanted to. Apart from the animation, though, even the characters and dialogue were very plain – again, possibly to appeal more to a young demographic.

The premise revolves around two con artists, Tulio and Miguel, who unexpectedly find themselves on the adventure of a lifetime when they obtain a map to El Dorado – the legendary City of Gold. They find their way to the city surprisingly easy, but once there, they are mistaken for gods as foretold by a prophecy. With the prospect of receiving gold as gifts by the tribe, they run along with the idea and pretend to be gods. But someone else is in search of El Dorado and Tulio and Miguel realize they have to help the tribe save their city.

Yeah, there’s lots of action and adventure to keep the kids entertained. As for me, this was a once off watch. Turns out I’m not the only one, as the film unfortunately flopped at the box office and only earned $76 million on a $95 million budget. Ouch!

Would I watch it again? No.