Dora and the Lost City of Gold

OK, joking aside, we all thought this was gonna flop spectacularly. Dora has had a very rocky reputation and a live-action version sounds like a terrible idea. But to my surprise this was a very charming and pretty funny movie. It is mainly aimed at kids and that meant a bit of cringe-worthy moments here and there, but the whole product is just a lot of fun, and I'm saying this as someone who despises Dora The Explorer. Give it a watch, you may end up liking it.

I didn't think I would like this teenage adventure, but I did. This film is a fun filled adventure, with much positivity, fun and thrill. Scenes are colourful, songs are upbeat, and the film is quite a fun ride. I can't believe I liked it!

This live-action film adapts the well-known cartoons (2000-2019, 175 episodes) to the big screen, based on the popular children's series: Dora the Explorer. Dora is a little Hispanic girl with who goes on adventures with her red boot wearing monkey, conveniently named Boots. During her adventures we also get to meet her talking backpack (or la mochila) and the map who sings an annoyingly cute song. In the series Swiper manages to steal items from Dora and Boots, he exclaims "You'll never find it now!", but the stolen items are always found and retrieved within a few seconds. The main purpose of the TV show is to teach Spanish to English-speaking children. In the film Dora, played by Isabela Moner, is now 16 years old and is going to have to face the most powerful jungle: the High School. After 10 years of exploring, Dora's parents (Michael Peña, Eva Longoria) decipher the location of Parapata and choose to send a now 16-year-old Dora (Isabela Moner) to Diego's high school in Los Angeles while they travel to the lost city. Staying with a now 17-year-old Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and his family, Dora meets fellow students Sammy (Madeleine Madden) and Randy (Nicholas Coombe). Dora's parents have been trying to locate the legendary city for years, the golden city Inca of Parapeta. When they finally decide to go exploring without her daughter, she must leave the golden Peruvian jungle and move to the USA to the home of her uncle and her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and attent at the Silverlake High school. Then they are captured by mercenaries led by Powell (Temuera Morrison) who fly them to Peru. When they land, a man named Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez) claims to be a friend of Dora's parents . Meanwhile, Boots and Swiper (voices of Danny Trejo and Benicio del Toro in the original version) are doing their thing, full of mischief and gibberish. Explorer is Her Middle Name !. Unlock the mystery !. Unleash your wild side !.

A kiddies adventure with thrills, emotion, adolescent friendship and sense of wonder. Stars Isabela Moner (Transformers: The Last Knight, Sicario: The Day of the Soldado) who gives a likable acting as the brave and adventurer teen girl. Co-starring Eugenio Darbez, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, Adriana Barraza, Jeff Wahlberg, Danny Trejo and Benicio del Toro, all of them give pleasant and sympathetic performances. And special appearance by Isela Vega in one of her last films before her death, playing an old Inca magician with dark secrets. The film unites the classic ingredients of the Nickelodeon series (the backpack, the map, the fox Swiper voiced by Benicio del Toro, Boots voiced by Danny Trejo) with adventures in the jungle full of evil mercenaries, quicksand, lost cities full of gold, and adding the typical High-School stories of teaching including the ordinary nerds, underdogs and bullies.

The agreeable script is by Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robins and the efficient direction by James Bobin. The latter is a fine craftsman and expert in children's films, having been nominated for 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, 4 awards and 24 nominations in total. And working in cinema and television in several films and series, such as: ¨Alice Through the Looking Glass¨, ¨Muppets Most Wanted¨ , ¨The Muppets¨, ¨The Conchords¨, ¨Enlightened¨, ¨Percy Jackson and the Olympians¨, among others. ¨Dora and the Lost City of Gold¨(2019) rating: 6/10. The film will appeal to adventure-loving children and teenagers alike.

Okay, I never expected to be sitting watching this film and to be honest, I watched it when I was feeling a bit blurgh and needed a bit of brightness and happiness. And you know what, it delivered.

It's not a great film by any means but it is a very good family film, something to sit and watch with the children on a Saturday afternoon.

Isabela Merced was quite good in Transformers: The Last Knight and Instant Family and she shows again that she has a good future in family type films for the next few years.

It's an adventure story with lots of silliness and friendships, an Indiana Jones for the younger generation with less snakes and more brightly coloured outfits.

You know what, I'll give it a 12/20 because it is a good fun.

The Plot is a wholly ridiculous story ripped from multiple Tarzan movies of the 40's and 50's. But go with it.

Six-year old Dora (Madelyn Miranda) and Diego (Malachi Barton) are having fun growing up in the jungle with their academic parents. (At least, you assume Diego's parents are there somewhere... this is all very vague!). Dora's parents - Cole (Michael Peña) and Elena (Eva Longoria) - are explorers on a lifelong mission to discover the lost Inca city of Parapata. Parapata is famed to be crammed with gold - "more than all the rest of the world's gold put together".

But Dad makes clear that they are not in it for the financial benefit: the motto is explorers = good; treasure hunters = bad.

But Dora's idyllic childhood is rocked when Diego has to return to civilization and she has to grow up alone with her parents.

Roll forwards 10 years and Dora has grown. Now as Isabela Moner, she discovers a vital clue to Parapata's location. But this signals a change for Dora, since she is not allowed on the expedition and must go to a far wilder place: to join Diego, now Jeff Wahlberg (nephew of Mark) in an LA high-school.

But Mum and Dad are not the only ones on the trail of Parapata's treasures, and together with new friends, the spiky "mean-girl" Sammy (Madeleine Madden) and the nerdy astronomy geek Randy (Nicholas Coombe), they must mount a rescue mission that takes them.... you'll NEVER guess where..!

The film is a blast for kids, and probably suitable for emotionally robust kids of all ages. Nobody actually dies, despite falling unfathomably long distances onto rocks! However, the film also pulls off that great and welcome trick by dropping in enough jokes for parents to be entertained. "Yumm... delicioso!" says young Dora. Then breaking the fourth wall "Can YOU say delicioso?". Fleabag-style this confuses the hell out of Mum and Dad. Cole says to Elena, "Don't worry... she'll grow out of it". And fortunately, she does before the joke becomes tiresome!

There's no warning about drug-taking, since the hallucinogenic scene with exploding flowers will go right over young kid's heads. But I found it very amusing!

There are also some fun "fish out of water" high school scenes. We've seen many of these before with the likes of Spider-Man, but here they are light-touch and fun.

When things get back into the jungle, they take on a much whackier angle. It's all very "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull", but without the crushing disappointment! But again, kids will love the puzzle-solving and the "Mummy-ish" gothic humour. The only part of this that I think might disturb young kids is a quicksand scene, that parents might like to pre-warn youngsters that everything will work out fine!

Holding the whole film together like a little Duracell Bunny of vitality is 18-year old Isabela Moner, who is a genuine talent, honed in the Nickelodeon studios. She was impressive in the above average "Instant Family", and I predict she will go onto great things over the next 10 years.

Elsewhere, a "Pointless" answer from the cast is Benicio del Toro as the voice of "Swiper", a bizarrely talking and poorly-disguised fox! This probably makes more sense to those who know the original kid's cartoon!

Even more annoying is Dora's (strangely multi-coloured) monkey Boots... the Jar Jar Binks of the film, who might amuse very young children but probably not many other folks.

Final Thoughts: Here's a film that is not trying to be anything other than a fun and much needed summer outing for families. Disney used to do this sort of live-action family film thing so well in the 70's and 80's, before they got obsessed with pointless recreations of their cartoon classics.

The director is James Bobin, who's formerly directed a number of the Muppet movies, and this movie breathes with the same sense of anarchic fun without being too up itself.

The film occasionally makes you cringe, with some dreadfully (and deliberately) naff songs, but I enjoyed it and for the right audience (kids 8 to 12) I think they'll have a blast.

(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies on this new-fangled internet thing, or else on Facebook... whatever the earth that is. Thanks).