Max Holland: The Road to El Dorado (2000) Movie Review

The Road to El Dorado (2000) is an animated adventure comedy from DreamWorks. It got mixed reviews and bombed at the box office, but over time it’s gotten a bit of a cult following. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads “Predictable story and thin characters made the movie flat”, and having watched the movie myself, I’d have to agree with that consensus. I watched this movie one time as a kid and thought it was okay at best. I watched it again just recently as an adult after finding it on Netflix and my opinion is pretty much the same.

The plot follows our two main characters Tulio (Kevin Kline) and Miguel (Kenneth Branah), two con men who are fugitives escaping from Spain. They set out to find El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. They find El Dorado and find that it's inhabited by a tribe of Mayans. The Mayans see Tulio and Miquel as gods. The two see this to their advantage, so they pretend to be gods to earn the people's trust and get their hands on the gold.

There's Chel (Rosie Perez), a Mayan girl who figures out they're not gods and wants in on their scheme so she can escape the city and explore the outside world. Then there's Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante), the movie's main antagonist. Tzekel-Kan is sadistic and has a harsher way of pleasing the gods, like human sacrifice for instance (which was typical Mayan tradition). The Mayan chief has a more peaceful way of offering to the gods and disapproves of Tzekel-Kan's way. This leads to Tzekel Kan testing Tulio and Miguel to see if they're actually gods. He eventually puts together that they're not gods and tries to kill them. He even uses dark magic to summon a stone jaguar after our main characters.

I know there are people out there who have a soft spot for this movie, and to be fair I don’t hate it. I don’t even think it’s that bad, but it’s not particularly good either. Plus, compared to DreamWorks’ previous attempt at hand drawn animation with The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Road to El Dorado is a bit of a downgrade. It has its moments here and there. It’s funny and entertaining, and the songs are catchy (I think Elton John did a pretty good job with the songs).

The animation is pretty good for DreamWorks standards. I thought the part with the stone jaguar was pretty cool (kind of like something out of Power Rangers). However, I wasn’t too impressed with the story and characters, not to mention it borrows too heavily from a certain Disney animated film from 8 years prior.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

Our main characters are thieves on the run from the law and pretend to be something they're not for fame and riches. Then a girl wanting to escape the city tags along with the main characters and even serves as a love interest to one of them. Then there's a servant to the chief who practices dark magic and figures out they're not what they say they are and wants them killed. There's also an upbeat song number with a trippy multi-colored layout. It's a complete knock off of Aladdin (1992). Like, why would they do that? Come on DreamWorks!!

I found the primary protagonist Tulio a bit unlikable. He comes off as greedy and self-centered. I mean he and Miguel both appear that way, but at least Miguel has a change of heart near the end. Chel feels like a knock off of Princess Jasmine but without much of a point. Tzekel Kan is basically a direct rip-off of Jafar, but with very little influence on the plot (aside from being the motivational tool behind Tulio and Miguel’s scheme). Referring back to Aladdin, Jafar had way more involvement in the main plot. Heck, he was even the first major character introduced and made it clear that he means business. This “Tzekel-Kan” guy just appears out of nowhere.

Also, our main characters haven't really changed in the end, and they haven't really learned anything. I guess Miguel learned one thing. He does eventually realize that he and Tulio may have gone too far with their scheme. Besides that, they don’t give us much of a reason to root for them. Aladdin and Abu were thieves stealing from the market, but we can at least see where they’re coming from.

Tulio and Miguel are just two greedy con men. There’s that one bit during the climax (minor spoiler) where Tzekel-Kan is in cahoots with Hernan Cortes and his army, and they set out to ambush El Dorado. The Chief gets word about it and that’s when our main characters have to save the Mayans by closing the entrance. But that gets resolved too quickly and left me thinking “That was it?”.

There are a lot of things I liked about the movie, but the storyline wasn't really one of them and there’s very little character development. That’s why I think the movie failed. I'm sure there's a good movie in there, so I want to say this movie is okay. The fact that Aladdin was one of my favorite movies as a kid, I'm kind of annoyed by the fact that DreamWorks copied and pasted from that movie but also kind of missed the point in what made it work. I'd expect more from the studio behind The Prince of Egypt (1998), and I think this is one of DreamWorks Animation’s weaker movies. I’m not complaining because I didn’t like the movie. I’m complaining because I didn’t love it. I'd say this movie is average. I think it's an okay way to pass the time.

I give The Road to El Dorado a solid 6/10, which is being generous.

I'd also like to comment that for a kid's movie, the main characters aren't very good role models. They're seen gambling and even cheating in gambling games as well as cheating in sports. Not a very good influence on kids. One more thing to comment on is when they get shipwrecked, Tulio goes "Holy ship!!", like instead of that "other word". DreamWorks, I know you like being edgy, but this is a PG cartoon post 1999. Parents are going to take their kids to see this, so maybe try to actually keep it PG? Come to think of it, DreamWorks also did this in Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (2023) with "I'm a mother flipping mermaid!". Take it down a notch, will you DreamWorks? This isn't 1980 you know.

That's my 2 cents on The Road to El Dorado (2000)

Have you seen The Road to El Dorado (2000)? What did you think? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Did you think it was okay? Is your opinion similar to mine? Let me know in the comments.

You can check out my video review on YouTube: