The Road to El Dorado (2000)
September 4, 2018 8:23 AM - Subscribe

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

Roger Ebert:
In the studio's [DreamWorks] quest to compete with Disney in the feature-length animation sweepstakes, it's a worthy entry. It's not as quirky as "Antz" or as grown up as "The Prince Of Egypt" but as silly fun it does nicely, and no wonder: Its directors are Disney veterans, and the soundtrack includes such effective cartoon voices as Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Armand Assante, Edward James Olmos and the unsinkable Rosie Perez.

...

Freed of a towering central figure like Pocahontas or Tarzan, "The Road to El Dorado" is liberated for goofiness. There are no serious themes lurking about, or uplifting lessons to learn--just a couple of con men in over their heads, their gal pal and a horse that some of the time is smarter than the other three put together. (Since the horse doesn't speak, it's able to exploit the miming gifts of the animators.) This is not a landmark in the history of feature animation, but it's bright and has good energy, and the kinds of witty asides that entertain the adults in between the margins of the stuff for the kids.
Trailer
posted by zinon (5 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
This is a ridiculous movie, made entirely of ridiculousness and it is one of my favourites. T'hb and I quote it frequently (‘you...made my life...an adventure...’) at each other.

Also, might be keeping Tulio and Miguel (mighty and powerful gods!) in the list of prospective cat names.
posted by halcyonday at 12:51 PM on September 4, 2018


I really liked this movie, because I grew up watching re-airings of the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road to..." [Morocco, Zanzibar, Utopia, Rio, etc] movies on Turner Classic Movies with my grandpa. It nails that late '40s cheeky screwball dialogue.

I remember a lot of outrage from the Twinset-Moms, though, because there was sex-behind-the-sofa at one point, and it wasn't exactly the missionary position, if you know what I mean....
posted by basalganglia at 3:34 PM on September 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


I took my son to it in the theater and remember it being reasonably diverting, although basically a remake of The Man Who Would be King.
posted by octothorpe at 4:32 PM on September 4, 2018


Watched it with my kids - and thankfully they didn't pick up on the "blowjob" scene. (I am no prude, and don't mind a bit of subversion, but that was just a bit ... "much"...)
posted by jkaczor at 6:34 PM on September 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have no idea why but this film and the Emporer'ss New Groove are firmly squished together in my head as one movie. So much so that I scanned the tags and wondered where Eartha Kitt's name was and then had to go look at her entire career on IMDB before realising that this and the Emperors New Groove are in fact not the same movie.

I think I liked it, but Kevin Klein and K Barangh have such distinct voices that it's distracting to watch animated versions of them.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:00 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


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