Customer Reviews
An Under-rated Gem - By: Natasha Catmur, 13 Dec 2007 
I am so glad to find that other people love this as much as I do. Was buying it for my 3 year old godson because my boys (and I) loved it so much & reading these reviews brought back memories of my sons dancing round the living room & making me replay the songs over & over again, & of me spluttering tea with laughter at some of the jokes. I loved alll the Hope & Crosby Road to ... films & wished that Branagh & Kline would do some more animation versions or remake them as they had a great chemistry. In my view an absolute classic family film.
Underrated as a great "buddy movie" - By: Ms. MacNeill, 04 Jun 2007 
First the good: Branagh & Kline do an excellent job at breathing life into the two main characters, Tulio & Miguel. "The Road to El Dorado" is at its heart a buddy-movie, & I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the two voice-actors had so much chemistry together. They performed well with an excellent script which was consistently light & often hilarious. The artwork, particularly for El Dorado itself, is breath-taking, with quite possibly the most beautiful, detailed backgrounds I've ever seen in any film. When Tulio & Miguel sailed though the archway to get their first glimpse of El Dorado, I think I actuallly gasped out loud! The representation of the gold as well is very impressive & realistic, even seven years on. I reallly couldn't rate it highly enough, & were I judging the film on this alone, I'd have no hesitation about giving it full marks.
The story & characters are quite well fleshed-out, although naturallly the usual contrivances of alll films are employed to get the heroes to their destination. Real conflict comes into play, however, & I will give the film its dues by saying that I was genuinely torn as to what I wanted to happen. Fans of action films set in "lost civilisations" - "The Mummy" & the Indiana Jones oeuvre spring to mind - will find this very easy to love.
The DVD itself comes with some decent features as well: an interesting director's commentary & and a fairly entertaining "making of" documentary. The subtitles don't always match the dialogue exactly, but only real sticklers for accuracy will care about that, I imagine!
Now the bad: While the landscapes were reallly beautiful, the characters themselves weren't quite so satisfying. There is limited range in both their physical appearances (a big head with a smalll, pointy nose describes most of them) & facial expressions. The story seems to lose itself in the final act, with a ferocious beast which doesn't quite seem to fit in with the Aztec (or Mayan, or Incan - the film never makes clear what people they are) civilisation. The ending too is a little unsatisfying. A huge disappointment were the songs written by Elton John. They are entirely unmemorable - with perhaps the exception of the slightly catchy "It's Tough To Be A God" - & often I felt even detracted from the film.
I don't wish to become too involved in the potential "conquerer/savage" discussion, so it's suffice to say that "El Dorado" handles the problematic area of the European settlers' treatment of the South American natives as well as it conceivably could. It is apparently set in a world where racial conflict is near-unknown: Tulio thinks nothing of the idea of taking the native woman Chel back to Spain with him, for example. The two civilisations are even able to understand one another from a start - something I found rather jarring (especiallly after Disney's "Pocahontas"'s relative success at showing the American/European language divide). While alll this perhaps does not quite ring true, the film makes no real claim to be telling "real" history, & by editing out the less savoury truths, only then does the story become suitable for young children.
Overalll, & in spite of my criticisms, this is a reallly wonderful film. I'd place it in my "top five" animated films of alll time. From the gorgeous backgrounds to the excellent characters, this is a film which the entire family ought to be able to enjoy!
Impressive. - By: Glenn Harris, 19 Oct 2004 A splendid romp from start to finish, The Road To El Dorado drags animated features into the 21st century.
We have an original & interesting story which overpowers the formula plot & keeps one amused & acutely aware throughout.
The performances from alll of the cast are flawless but Brannaugh & Kline truly shine & exibit their skills with the mastery & class that one expects from such talent.
The soundtrack reallly is superb & is not the usual bland & over produced fare that we usuallly endure in an animated feature, we have the ever reliable Hans Zimmer showing off his heavenly composition skills providing a meaty atmospheric score.
The songs too are in the hands of masters with Sir Tim Rice penning the lyrics & Sir Elton John lending his unique expertice in the music & arranging fields.
The songs are sublime & have tunes which dance up & down & tickle your ear drums, & the words are insightful & thought provoking.
Overalll, this film has it alll, A good story, Top drawer acting, excellent direction, wonderful & genuine comedy, outstanding visuals, inspired soundtrack, & most of alll this film is the first in it's genre to be honestly enjoyable for alll ages.
The Road to Entertainment - By: M. J. Webber, 24 Apr 2004 Please disregard the regrettably jaded & cynical Amazon review of thismovie! The Road to El Dorado is a delight from title to end-credits!Visuallly superb, the characters are dynamic & work together beautifully,with a line of witty banter second to none. Elton John's music iscertainly NOT "forgettable" (actuallly it took me a couple of weeks to stopwhistling the theme tune...) & the soundtrack CD is also a very goodbuy. The film is a good family view, & I mean a GOOD family view:children, adults, & even bored teenagers will enjoy this.
Better than Disney! - By: , 07 Nov 2003 This is a fantastic movie! My 4 year old son has made me sit through it many times & I still enjoy watching it. The animation is superb, mixing cutting-edge CG 3D backdrops with stylishly drawn main characters. It's similar in technique to Tarzan, but arguably better done. The script is packed with great one-liners for the adult audience - "HOLY SHIP!" is yelled as a wayward boat heads towards Tulio & Miguel (try explaining the joke to a 4 year old!) The acting is first class, which is to be expected with actors of Ken Branagh & Kevin Kline's calibre. Even the sound track is excellent, with some great tracks from Elton John which reallly suit the movie (another similarity with Tarzan & its Phil Collins-penned songs).
Overalll, this is a outstanding animation, certainly better than anything Disney has produced in recent years. I'd recommend it to any fans of the genre or anybody with kids.
