Review: Dora And The Lost City Of Gold

Dora And The Lost City Of Gold
Cert: PG / 102 mins / Dir. James Bobin / Trailer



Well, I didn’t think it’d be eleven years until Paramount green-lit a remake of Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but here we are. The big-screen iteration of Nickelodeon’s most famous explorer is here to help the Summer holidays go with a swing.

Isabela Moner takes the eponymous lead in this tale of creepers, creeps and lost treasure. She’s a natural lead and shines throughout, her buoyant style easily making the audience forget that at 19 she’s already cut her acting teeth on titles as diverse as Transformers and Sicario.

With Dora’s parents played by Eva Longoria and Michael Peña, the combination of familial warmth and tight comic timing is never too far away. But a kid can’t adventure in the shadow of their parents forever of course, and so she’s joined by her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg), with schoolfriends Sammy (Madeleine Madden) and Randy (Nicholas Coombe). Together they find themselves whisked away from the city and into the jungles of Peru, forming a group that can spark off against one another while learning to work as a team (because let’s not forget the actual target demographic here, yeah?).

And it’s great fun. The most obvious cinematic homages are to Indy of course*¹, but it also draws from the wider pool of adventure movies while never forgetting that this is Dora’s show, and never trying to re-invent the wheel. The perfectly paced action sequences slot in with the sharp script and perhaps more toilet humour than you’d expect from a PG. There are also some very self-aware gags for fans of the TV show in the first act, although these drop to a more manageable level as things go on.

If you can’t quite bear the thought of the brightly coloured Angry Birds just now, drop in on Dora for the most good natured, good-old-fashioned adventure you’ll have this Summer…

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle and yes - Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.



It is.



One for the adventure-shelf, yes.



Everyone should be very proud to have this on their CV.



If you're a joyless sap who doesn't enjoy this, yes.



There's not.
I shall be writing a letter.



Level 1: Jango Fett is in this, along with the voices of DJ and Captain Rex.





*¹ Seriously though, of the four Indy movies that Dora could have chosen to emulate, structurally it's closest to Crystal Skull. And I like it more for that because I like Crystal Skull and there I said it. Fight me. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.