Sean’s Scene: Dora and the Lost City of Gold
Can you say, “A surprisingly delightful movie?”
Dora the Explorer was a show that premiered on Nick Jr. in the year 2000. It was an innocuous show that mostly drew from other Nick Jr. shows such as Blue’s Clues. A big sticking point of the show was that as Dora explored, she’d look to the audience and ask them questions by saying things like, “Do you see the mountain?” For younger audiences it was a small, educational show, and it had some charm to it. Of course, the idea that you could turn a show like Dora the Explorer into a film seems kind of absurd, especially if you’re going to make it just like the show. But here’s the thing, they did turn this show into a live action movie… and it’s actually pretty good. There isn’t much to draw from when it comes to the show, so they built this movie around familiar aspects of the show, and around the absurdity that is: a young girl exploring the jungle with no parental supervision whatsoever. It’s embracing how silly the whole idea of Dora the Explorer is that actually makes the movie so worthwhile. This isn’t a joke: Dora the Explorer is a legitimately good movie that’s full of charm, witty writing, and sincere performances.
The movie begins with a young Dora and her cousin Diego (unfortunately, no one in the movie ever utters, “Go, Diego, Go!”) in the jungle as children with vivid imaginations. Soon Diego has to leave to the city, leaving Dora in the jungle with her scholarly parents. Ten years later, Dora’s parents have managed to track down the lost city of gold, but don’t think Dora is ready for this kind of expedition, and so they send her off to the city to go to school with her cousin Diego.
At first getting involved in high school is awkward for Dora. Having spent her entire life up to that point in the jungle makes her quite awkward. She’s smart well beyond her years, but as Diego tells her… while in the jungle she can do whatever she wants, in high school her antics are going to be viewed with a lot more scrutiny. I would’ve gladly taken an entire movie in which Dora learns how to fit into high school, but the actual movie was far better. On a field trip to a museum, Dora, Diego and their friends are kidnapped by mercenaries who believe Dora and her family can help them find the Lost City of Gold. It’s soon back to the jungle for Dora, but this time she’s got two friends from the city and her cousin Diego.
The end result is a movie that combines the likes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the new DuckTales and the new Jumanji for a pretty good time. The movie has some pretty good adventurous moments, witty dialog, and character interactions. In particular, Isabella Moner does an excellent job as Dora, first as being an awkward teenager, and then as being her classmates’s survival guide in the jungle. She adds a layer of charm that’s completely unexpected. Especially because with the absurdity happening in the movie she plays well to that absurdity, while still being quite clever. This makes for some great bits of visual comedy, such as watching what “supplies” Dora brings to her first day of school, to her classmates not being fazed she brought a knife on a field trip.
This doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t respect it’s adaptational roots. What the movie presents is a reality in which Dora’s adventures were the product of her imagination. These imagined adventures WERE the show, while this movie takes place after all that, with her being older, and actually adept to her surroundings and having real adventures. The writers also imagine how that kind of upbringing would impact a child. As a result Dora isn’t quite ready for human interaction, but she knows how to adapt much easier than most. She knows how to keep her cool, and is quite resourceful in most situations. So this isn’t the Dora the Explorer your children watched, but it can be rewarding to those who may have (in some form or another) watched it as a child.
It’s best to watch Dora as a more live action cartoon. It’s unashamed of being goofy and absurd. This approach to the film is going to give the audience mixed results. Sometimes the characters react to situations in a manner more similar to a Saturday morning cartoon than not. In most cases, this is actually done really well, in part because the movie sets this tone fairly early on. You’re either going to be on board for this approach or not. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is still a movie meant to entertain primarily children, but you’d be foolish to think that this means the movie doesn’t take its craft seriously, or that it feels like a movie that holds back because it’s primarily for children. This isn’t the kind of movie that talks down to its primary audience.
Case in point, Dora and the Lost City of Gold has an unusually witty script at its disposal. There is a lot of clever dialog that’s guaranteed to make you laugh. The script also keeps its themes of family, cooperation and accepting people as they are from being heavy handed, but still firmly established. Likewise, it’s nice that much of the story is coherent without zany things happening just for the sake of those zany things happening. Unlike most kids movies, you don’t feel like Dora is just trying to hold a child’s attention for 100 minutes, but that it actually seems to have something to say. It’s not deep, but it’s something. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is the kind of a movie a child looks back on in adulthood and realizes it wasn’t simply talking down to them, but rather respected them.
The best benefit to watching it play out like a real life cartoon is that it doesn’t strive to be lifelike when presenting the animals or situations. Watching Dora and the Lost City of Gold will also make you wish that Disney had gotten this technology for some of their animals in The Lion King. It may not look as good, but it is at least expressive. Boots is an absolute charm here because of how expressive he is. No, he does not look particularly realistic, but he moves and acts in a way that doesn’t look unusual here, and he has a myriad of facial expressions to communicate with Dora and others. This expression, liveliness and charm is something you wish the Lion King remake had.
This doesn’t mean that the movie is perfect. Far from it. It only means that whatever flaws you find will be redeemed by what the movie does well. For instance, despite the great interactions between characters, the movie doesn’t really do a whole lot with what small love story it provides. Likewise, most of the villains aren’t interesting at all. We get lots of shots of the villains and henchmen but strangely they aren’t particularly active. It may seem like a lot to expect this kind of movie to do better with its villains, but given how much leeway you’re going to have to give the movie for their introduction — it’s a shame it never does anything with them.
There are also moments where you have to remember that the movie is cartoony and quirky in its style. So much so that the self-aware humor, colorful aesthetic, and cartoon inspired qualities might be a turn off for some audiences altogether. That is to say that the movie isn’t grounded. Despite establishing this tone quite early, there are still moments that might immediately pull you out of the aesthetic (such as Swiper’s appearance) or make you readjust.
All that being said, nothing within the movie was off-putting enough that it wasn’t fun. On the other hand, I imagine the film’s mere existence will be enough to turn a lot of people off who would dismiss it as simply a children’s movie. There are plenty of animated shows popular among adults and teens, but Dora was never among them. Indeed for some adults this has caused them to be dismissive of Dora and the Lost City of Gold outright because they expect it will be exactly like the show. More importantly, adults can be fairly dismissive of children’s movies in general (at least that aren’t Disney/Pixar) that they often miss out on some of the better ones… or are embarrassed at the idea of watching them in the first place. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is nothing to be embarrassed about. It may be a kid’s movie based off of a preschooler’s television show, but one cannot accuse it of being crass, belittling or incompetent in its approach.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a treasure of a movie. It has some flaws that can be noteworthy, but it’s far from being a bad movie. It’s well written, fun and isn’t interested in insulting its primary audience. Yet there’s enough heart and charm here to appeal to adult audiences too, particularly through it’s self-aware humor. All things considered, the movie as a whole is a rewarding experience.
