The Road to El Dorado
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List Price: $7.25
Features
• Animated
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 2000
Video Release : 12 December, 2000 |
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The Road to El Dorado Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Great fun, visually beautiful, and a kid's introduction to Mayan culture
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Wow, I wouldn't add another review of this movie except that some of the posted ones are sooo bizarre!
We first rented this movie when my daughter was maybe 5 and loved it. There are several sequences where the color and animation are just stunning, and the buddy-movie plot in a historical setting is very funny and (somewhat) educational at the same time. The story involves two Spanish con-artists, Tulio and Miguel, who are accidental stowaways on Cortez' ship and end up in El Dorado, where they are received as gods. Although no specific location for El Dorado is identified and story elements are borrowed broadly from Meso-American culture, the imagery is largely Mayan, and the woman with bigger dreams who helps our Spanish heros is named Chel, no doubt taken from the Mayan goddess Ix Chel.
I find it bizarre that some reviewers find a few seconds (literally) of rear nudity of cartoon characters who are bathing to be objectionable for children. Children are likely to be last ones who think this is unusual. And the suggestion that there is implicit sex in this movie is even stranger, unless you are talking about the fact that children are depicted in some scenes (and we all know where children come from!) Adults can read what they want into the relationship of Tulio and Chel, but I had no problem with my daughter seeing this either when she was 5 or now that she is 8.
A more serious issue than the sex that isn't there is the theme of human sacrifice. This was indeed hard to explain to my 5-year-old, but certainly no worse than many other 'kids' movies, and much easier than explaining the daily news. The actual implied deaths in the movie are limited (if I recall completely) to an anonymous skull on the beach and the sadistic priest's assistant, whom one understands to be murdered in a cutaway scene that shows no actual violence. The scene in which heros Tulio and Miguel are being pursued by a giant stone jaguar was a little scary to my 5-year-old, but is viewed as fairly tame now that she is 8. Overall, it's a far less violent movie than things like Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the ubiquitous shoot-em-up TV cartoons (or old cartoon standards like Huck Hound and Road Runner). It is certainly less violent than most of the Bible or kids' movies based on it such as Prince of Egypt. More importantly, the message is clearly anti-violent, and the off-screen violence is not glorified as something noble, ethical, patriotic, or the will of God.
A historical element that was more difficult for a 5-year-old to comprehend than why there was human sacrifice is why the Spanish were received as gods, and what exactly that meant. Sometimes it's good to be forced to explain theologcical concepts and how they vary among cultures to 5-year-olds. It can help sharpen your own understanding or ability to communicate it.
From a historical perspective, the good chief/sadistic priest dichotomy is an overly simplistic view of how sacrifice functioned in meso-American cultures, but it seemed about right to introduce kids to an unsavory historical topic, and works in the plot as the standard good/evil conflict that many or most stories revolve around. There are other historical and cultural tidbits that may not all be exactly in the correct context, but nevertheless introduce kids and many adults to details of Mayan and broader meso-American culture. For example, the movie is appropriately set in 1519, the year when Cortez actually did set out (from Cuba, not Spain) to Mexico, and landed first on Cozumel, a major pilgrimage site for the temple of the goddess Ix Chel, before heading on to conquer the Aztecs. The movie features in fairly accurate way the ball game that was a central cultural element of Meso-American cultures and is a key element in the Mayan creation myth (Popol Vuh). In one scene, Miguel takes a turn as a voladore (a person who swings upside down suspended from a tall pole). I don't know if the Maya specifically had voladores, but they are a ubiquitous and colorful feature of Mexican tourist spots, including at Maya ruins.
I rented this movie a second time (and eventually bought it because I like it) this year to help my daughter understand who the Maya are (and were) before we took a family vacation to Cozumel. Although it might not be as accurate of a cultural depiction as the books I also got for her, it is safe to say that she was more easily engaged in the movie. Fortunately, she also got to meet real Maya and see how they live now. I took the movie along on our trip and watched it with the entire extended family, who all enjoyed it immensely and laughed frequently (ages 8-80).
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The Road to El Dorado movies, videos.