Man, from all of the trailers and (even) advertisements of this movie, I was expecting “Dora & The Lost City of Gold” to be the lowest of the low like a Happy Madison comedy. I felt like my childhood was going to have its worst nightmare. Thank god this turned out to be the most surprising movie of the year.
18-year old Isabela Moner plays the Dora we all know and love as she has a passion for exploring different worlds that can be dangerous for a young girl like her. Dora is motivated to experience a “lost city of gold” from his father’s (Michael Pena) collection of books. His parents think that she is not ready for this task, yet Dora still feels confident experiencing no matter what boundaries there are.
Dora is also starting high school where he reunites with his brother Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) after almost a decade. Dora realizes that he wasn’t happy-go-lucky as he used to be when they were kids growing up. Instead, Diego is a shy, down-to-earth teenager whom still has a friendship with Dora.
Along her way, Dora meets two students at high school whom are a hipster-looking boy named Randy (Nicholas Coombe) and an essentially sassy girl named (Madeleine Madden) Sammy.
Both Diego and Dora start to go to high school together whilst Dora is more excited and emotional than most of the high school students. The film pokes a lot of fun with Dora not blending in with the students a lot where it adds an hysterical reference to “Moby Dick”.
After an unexpected surprise use of The Cure’s “In Between Days” (which I would never think of The Cure when watching this film), Dora goes onto a school field trip to some sort of an art museum. Dora and his friends later sneak into a warehouse at the museum where they abruptly get kidnapped by museum security guards.
They soon get transported by a cargo that takes them to what is “the lost city of gold”. Dora and his friends experience a fellow adventurist named Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez) with a leather suitcase packed with many survival equipment (including a “Pitch Perfect” triple feature DVD, not kidding you). Dora now has to face her most dangerous adventure (the lost city of gold) at this point of time.
I think by the end of the year, this will stay as my most surprising film of 2019. Coming out of the theater, I was very much blown away of how hysterical and fun “Dora & The Lost City of Gold” really is. This really could have been WAY worse from the way this film was portrayed in its trailers.
It actually might be one of the funniest comedies of 2019.
Isabella Moner is definitely a text book definition of a star to look out for after last year’s surprise “Instant Family”. She is perfectly cast as Dora with the energy and adventurous feel to her character that it would be beyond insulting to re-cast her for a sequel. She portrays a unique version of Dora that stays extremely true to the original source material.
She brings so much perfectly-timed humor where she can break the fourth wall and sing random songs to people like digging a poo hole.
Now about the monkey Boots?
Throughout the film, the CGI monkey itself makes a homage to Abu from the Disney classic “Aladdin” without speaking any dialogue whatsoever. But then, you wonder why Danny Trejo was cast as Boots? Because he voices the monkey in a scene I am not going to spoil. Not to lie, I cracked up.
Benicio Del Toro’s voice performance of Swiper was also a lot of fun to watch at times.
I like how director James Bobin (The Muppets, Flight of the Concords) handled Dora’s cousin Diego. His character takes a more different approach than the source material. He is more down-to-earth and plays as a mentor to Dora.
Michael Pena might be one of the funniest movie fathers I have come across in a while although there could have been more screen time for him as well as Eva Longoria playing Dora’s mother. From the trailers, the scene where Michael Pena beat-boxes towards Dora about the high school dance is expanded for the better.
Arguably the best scene in the film is where it is all traditionally-animated like the television show. No spoilers, but it brought me back so much memories when I was a kid watching it.
Eugenio Derbez is surprisingly really good in this as adventurist Alejandro. His jokes can sometimes fall very flat here and there, but you can tell that he is clearly having a lot of fun on set.
What I definitely love this movie for is how it not just pays homage, but also tributes many ’80’s adventure movies like “The Goonies” and the “Indiana Jones” movies. Like “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, every sequence has such a very nostalgic touch to it that it doesn’t look like a 2019 film.
Lately in 2019, many films this year have been giving a sense of nostalgia and that is a good thing.
The aspects that take it away from “Dora” being incredible is that some of the jokes (Ex. the farting quicksand mud) can fall very flat at certain times as well as all of the action sequences feeling very predictable and one-and-done.
“Dora & The Lost City of Gold” is one of the most surprising movies I have witnessed in a very long time. It is a rewarding film that parents can take their kids to during a matinee at the movies. Even though it is very far away, kind of avoid “The Angry Birds Movie 2” and see this gem of a film.
Hot take: “Dora & The Lost City of Gold” is a better childhood throwback than “Toy Story 4”. There. I said it.
Grade: 8.5/10
