The Road to El Dorado
This first part is going to be quite the rant. I apologize. Please bear with me.
I have read so many absolutely horrid reviews of this wonderful movie that I can stand it no longer. I have heard everything from "Kids should not be exposed to that," to "It portrayed the genocide of the Aztecs as a fun, happy adventure," to "This movie just sucked!" And this title just aggravated me: “Dream Works’s latest venture into Disney’s realm of the animated musical…”. First of all, it was NOT a musical, and Disney is not the only company allowed to make an animated movie (wake up, people, there are other perfectly able companies out there!). If you're going to attack DreamWorks because they decided to give Disney some competition, I'm liable to get pretty steamed.
First of all, it wasn't a movie for kids. It never claimed to be. And if you think that what you saw was bad, maybe they should have released the original, PG-13 version. I'm sorry if you didn't want your kids to see that, but whose fault was it? Certainly not the movie's. They gave it a PG rating for a reason. They NEVER told anyone that it would be a kiddie movie. Never assume that just because something is animated that it is automatically for kids. I'm concerned about "Titan AE". It isn't going to be a kids' movie, either.
Secondly, it was a fable about two con-men, not an historically accurate film about Cortes conquering the Aztecs. I personally thought that they represented the natives quite well. Then again, they weren't my ancestors, so my opinion on the subject probably doesn't hold much water. But, they didn't stereotype them as much as the other D company would have. The features were less Caucasian, and I was very happy that Chel (Rosie Perez) was not anorexic looking, as in the cases of other heroines. The chief (Edward James Olmos) appeared at first to be a typical un-observant, dim-witted leader (we wouldn't know of any of those, would we?), but proved to be a kind, intelligent, almost fatherly character. And if anyone was stereotyped, it was Tzekle-Kahn (Armand Assante). I'm sorry, I just do not like him. At all. And despite the fact that they meshed the Aztec, Inca, and Mayan cultures together, they never said that it was supposed to be any one of them. I thought the temples and such were really well done.
Okay, I'm done raving. You can stop scrolling down now.
I guess that I went into the theater kind of biased. I knew that JC was in it, and I thought that Tulio was really cute, so I was going to enjoy it despite how it went. Even so, when the commercials for it first started showing, I thought it looked really bad. I quickly got over that, though, and hounded my mom about it until I found out that Rissa and Bess wanted to see it too. Then, we hounded our parents simultaneously until we eventually got to go. Twice: once for my birthday, again for theirs. In fact, this was the second movie that I saw multiple times in the theater, and the first that I saw thrice.
It was just a fun movie. I don't see how anyone could not like it. The opening sequence was flat out hilarious. The whole movie was really funny, but especially that part leading up to their "stowing away". The interaction between Tulio and Miguel was very well done (how long do you figure they'd know each other?), and the animal sidekicks were great - unannoying (I know that's not a word) and humorous. Bridget fell in love with Bibo from the second he showed up, and Altivo was, well, the loyal horse with more common sense than both heroes combined (I didn't say smarter than).
The animation was absolutely wonderful. The gold aside, the CGI was mixed very well. You could tell that it was there if you were looking, but it didn't seem to stick out of the picture. The colors were simply beautiful. And, well, everyone already knows what I thought about the character designs for Our Heroes. Mmmm. Tulio...
I especially liked the fact that neither of the heroes were typical Disney-style macho men and the villain was more muscular than both combined.
Despite only having two real VAs (and what a pair; if you can only have two, you can't get much better than that), the voice over work here was good. Yes, I am about to excuse a bunch of SAs for taking VA parts. Ack, the world is coming to an end! I hate to admit it, but I cannot think of a single person who I would have rather had as Tulio than Kevin Kline. And Kenneth Branagh has a pretty cute voice, himself. And you know, Rosie Perez even tricked me into thinking I had caught Jessica Cyndee Jackson. Yes, the cast was ::sigh:: very well chosen. I am going to be labeled a hypocrite and flogged for this one for sure. Even so, I was still voice chasing through out my momentary loss of sense. I heard JC four times and (I know it was really obvious, but I caught it nonetheless) Frank Welker. Needless to say, I came away quite self satisfied as well as very entertained.
As for the music, I absolutely despise Elton John, and the lyrics to most of the songs weren't too impressive, either, but I loved the score, and I was glad that the songs (for the most part) were unobtrusive. I'm a big fan of acoustical guitar and violins and the like, and the part entitled The Brig (you know, on the ship) was enough to convince me to get the soundtrack. However, the lyrics to "Friends Never Say Goodbye" were really pretty. And I know I'm probably the only one in the world, but I kinda liked the "It's Tough to Be a God" sequence (not the Elton John/Randy Newmaned version). I'm sure I've said this somewhere before, but in case you haven't heard, I don't really like musicals. But I thought that it was funny and... < she begins to notice the weird looks > Eh hem. Moving right along...
Anyhow, I really loved this movie (doi. It's my favorite one) and I cannot wait until it comes out on video. Despite its ever-changing plot and rocky production, I thought it turned out very well and DreamWorks should be very proud of themselves.
TRtED was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, produced by Bonne Radford and Brooke Breton, the executive producer was Jeffrey Katzenberg, and it was directed by Eric “Bibo” Bergeron and Don Paul. The score was written by Hans Zimmer and John Powell, the music by Elton John, and the lyrics by Tim Rice.
If you’re ever in the mood for good El Dorado pictures, clips, or just feel like reading some really bad reviews, go here. This is where I got two of the pics. I had to scan in the one of Tulio and Miguel myself (oh, no!). It came off of the soundtrack booklet thing.
