The Road to El Dorado: DreamWorks' Middle Child of Gold - A 25th Anniversary Review

 

The Road to El Dorado: DreamWorks' Middle Child of Gold
A 25th Anniversary Review

The end of the 90s and the start of the new millennium would mark a big change in the dynamic of US animation. While Disney for decades had dominated the market and made a strong comeback with the renaissance, leaving other studios in the dust, the birth of DreamWorks Animation would provide Disney with something they hadn’t had to deal with in a decade – an actual theatrical challenge.

Antz and The Prince of Egypt proved that not only were DreamWorks able to win over audiences and critical reception, but also that they were capable of bringing forth mature stories that had an adult edge to them, something that the founder, Jeffrey Katzenberg, had pushed for during his tenure at Disney. Now while these two features provided the solid ground work, it would be Shrek that would ultimately solidify the studio’s status as a cultural icon, however nestled between two masterpieces was a little comedy that while it didn’t do well at the box office, with a mixed critical response, would in the following decades pull together a following among those fortunate to either catch it in theatres, on TV or home video – The Road to El Dorado.

And with this forgotten middle child turning 25 this year....…

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I can hear the undertaker getting my casket measurements already –

it’s time to really look into this cult classic, really dig into what made it stick around for so long.

"If staying in one place is an adventure, everyone must be Indiana Jones"

    But first - An amusing Backstory:

While generally reviews don’t necessarily factor in the behind the scenes affair of a movie, I felt like it was only proper to do so here since with 25 years we have hindsight and information that audience goers weren’t necessarily privy to at the time.

Firstly, it is interesting to note that production on The Road to El Dorado had an early start in October 1994 where Jeffrey Katzenberg gave two of the screenwriters the Hugh Thomas book: Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico, with story treatments beginning in 1995. What I do find fascinating is the time frame that this did happen, as when DreamWorks first feature came out in 1998, there was some conflict in the animation world as Katzenberg engaged in a feud with John Lasseter and Steve Jobs over him stealing the idea for Antz, from Pixar’s own A Bug’s Life. Now while taking inspiration and using it to stick it to Disney for not giving him the promotion he felt he deserved, I bring this up as I can’t help but feel the same echo here with El Dorado’s beginnings.

Shortly after The Lion King’s release in June 1994, co-director Roger Allers was called in to Eisner’s office to pitch a new idea, Allers's idea being a Mayan, Aztec themed movie. While I couldn’t find any reports that Katzenberg was part of this meeting or not, it isn’t a stretch to say that information about the pitch may have reached his ears through the grapevine. The fact that it’s clear that both sources of inspiration had an adventure approach to their respective narratives – with Kingdom of the Sun’s inspiration being Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda.

So with development for Kingdom of the Sun starting in 1994 and Katzenberg still being in charge of Disney Animation until October 1994, it feels a bit too coincidental that he too wanted to have his own take on said theme – and considering the take that’s towards Disney that Shrek would have, probably also in a manner of showcasing that his studio could
do better or to actively challenge the animation giant.

"What if....I made my own Aztec themed animated movie and passed it off as our own...."

It gets fascinating too considering that both movies would not only see a prolonged amount of time in development but both would see massive changes – El Dorado going from a raunchy PG-13 serious dramatic comedy to the PG comedy we saw today , with that said the movie would retain elements of its grand scale and adventure tone while Kingdom of the Sun would become the comedic, smaller scoped Emperor’s New Groove. The fact that both projects had creatives come and go and rework things does make for a fascinating look – and one could even jokingly say that DreamWorks leaned on copying Disney so hard that they even nailed down the troubled production! Both movies releasing in 2000 and underperforming at the box office only to find a following later too is another strange coincidence.

"You might know what I'm going to do but I know what you're going to do!"
"Oh...we're both bombing..."

I couldn’t let that lie as I find when people often talk about the movie – such as it being inspired by the classic Road to franchise headlined by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, the similarities and even some of the production hassles tend to be overlooked or in some cases, old details from the more adult version being exaggerated.

Same goes with another bit that I do find fascinating and that’s how this movie pushed CG at the time in spite of being hand drawn – the team had to go in and create entirely new rendering software for the gold and on top of that for the water effects that still integrated hand drawn elements so that it’d flow (hah) together better.

Surprising considering the stark contrast the CG in the final film has, but we’ll get to that below…..

the plot

(No, not the hip)

The movie wastes no time by ---- opening up with it’s own intro, with really dated CG and a killer number by Elton John. Admittedly with each viewing of this film, I can’t help but always be thrown by how it has it’s own little TV series style intro, really does make me wish we did see some kind of continuation with the characters.

But for real, the movie wastes no time introducing our main duo for the movie – two con men by the name of Miguel and Tulio. The duo manage to swindle a group of sailors that’re on land before finding themselves accidentally being trapped on a ship, heading to South America under the command of the cruel General Cortes.

That summary marks the first 5 minutes of the film and from the get go, it does a great job establishing the cast and their personalities, both on dialogue, actions and even each character’s animated movements.

Tulio is the big planner with all the thoughts and ideas but he’s also prone to panicking whenever something goes wrong or the possibility of something going wrong and his movements convey that perfectly, they’re erratic, very tense. Miguel on the other hand is more laid back, wishing for the better life and also enjoying the adventure but he does get ahead of himself without thinking about what could go wrong, and as such his movements are more calm and relaxed.

The movie’s opening showcases that perfectly and also hints at the ongoing conflict that will play a bigger part as the plot progresses – mainly there clash between Miguel and Tulio’s personalities as their journey escalates.

The characters are thrown into the jail cell that the ship has – because imagine a war general going on a peaceful mission from Spain in the 1500s….

"Oh yeah, he looks REALLLLY friendly....."

The duo then manage to escape with the help of Cortes’s horse, El Tivo – who tags along as the next main character of the movie….or rather just a companion….

"Look at him throwing himself into the adventure"

El Tivo’s role is essentially just animal companion for the movie, he’s amusing and helps out but there’s nothing really to go on about. He doesn’t bog down the movie but he does add to the charm and identity the film has and that’s something we will see as we go along, as there are admittedly a few narrative gaps the film does have that it left out for one reason or another – be it to maintain the comedic tone they wanted or for time purposes, since with a comedy sometimes you need to pick and choose which narrative elements , development or backstories are kept in and which have to be cut to keep the comedy going.

With the characters escaping Cortes’s ship - after running the risk of becoming slaves in Cuba - they’re stranded on a mysterious South American environment. Miguel still having the map they conned earlier leads the duo to the city of gold. From there we are introduced to a few more main players in this narrative.

Chel is introduced as a thief who has been running from the guards. Using the opportunity to save herself from potential imprisonment or execution, she makes the claim that she had been sent to serve the gods.

Oh right, this is a movie about Europeans hitting undiscovered land, of course that’s going to be the narrative.

Yeahhh it’s a tale as old as time but it does lead to a lot of fun in the movie narratively, especially since the people of El Dorado aren’t treated as idiots - as we will see, the leads from the city prove to be very intelligent for better or worse, they just have their beliefs and the two con men tend to get lucky.

Like accidentally causing a volcano to suddenyl stop….

Okayyyy…sooo..the movie does admittedly have random bits to it that while funny, don’t ever get a narrative explanation. Another side character that does get introduced is this random armadillo that the two accidentally saved on their way to discovering the city. In previous drafts of the movie, the plan was to reveal that this creature was in fact a god, hence explaining him helping the con men and even the volcano scenario since the armadillo is frantically jumping about until they shout at him to stop

Granted it is funny the idea of some humans shouting at a god to stop since that realllyyyyy shouldn’t work all things considered

"Yeah that seems about the response one would get if we go by the general depiction of gods"

Now I bring up this bit of information as admittedly, two of the other main characters in this movie did suffer from rewrites removing certain elements from the film - Chel for example, her motivation would’ve been that she was originally planned to be a sacrifice. In the final movie after she discovers the two men are playing a con, she merely states she has her reasons of going along with the con.

We see some elements of the original idea as the one character she tends to cower from is the villainous high priest - Tzekel Kahn, a man who is very insistent of sacrifices to the gods and blood over the town. Now while Chel’s backstory is sadly exorcised, her character in the movie is still strong and helps move the plot along by providing our duo (and the audience by proxy) information regarding the people’s customs of El Dorado, said customs playing a part in the narrative one way or another - from ensuring the duo don’t get discovered due to them not knowing the celebrations tied to them to helping them out a jam when things escalate with an ancient game that feels like a hybrid of soccer and basketball.

She is smart, cunning, can be bubbly and flirtatious - she will do what she want to get what she wants, even if she has to flirt with the guys to ensure she stays in the loop. While she may think ahead and try to keep things calm, she’s also prone to plans going wrong and worrying too, adding more to the character than just “attractive cast member”…..though to be fair everyone in this movie is attractive. I guess bland love interest would be appropriate.

The other two players are the chief Tunnabuck and the high priest Tzekel Kahn. The chief is presented as a reasonable fatherly like figure to his people who wants the best for them, while Tzekel Kahn is portrayed as obsessed with serving the gods and in the final film , his motivations boil down to clensing the city of those he personally deems as unworthy and corrupt - even though he himself is pure corrupt and it’s clear his play with the “gods” is to assert his power over the chief.

Tzekel Kahn’s motivations in the final film do feel overly simplistic, as it doesn’t help that the plot has him intimidate the duo during their stay as he is the only one that starts actively questioning their actions as they don’t foretell the destruction he firmly believes in or has been advocating - be it his insistence on sacrifices to him taking matters into his own hands come the climax. In a behind the scenes footage, when showing off the cast there’s an interesting bit where his voice actor - Armand Assante - goes on a tirade about how the chief had forced the people to live in solitude rather than fight back. It is a shame this quirk was lost, as it would’ve helped explain his beef with the chief rather than just merely wanting power.

That said, the conflict of the plot at this point in El Dorado is the trio con artists keeping the act going through different ceremonies while also stoking the fires between Tzekel Kahn and the chief - something that does end up back firing when Tulio realizes that Tzekel Kahn is flatout 

"Wuuuut insanneeee? Nawwwwww he's the most normal religious nut I've come across in a while"

For the rest of the plot we have the duo’s shenanigans in the city which are fun to watch, and in terms of the plot we do see the already tense relationship between Miguel and Tulio start to break more.

Throughout the film, the movie showcases the two butting heads on important matters and El dorado pushes it further as Miguel starts to grow fond of the people and the city while Tulio is dreading and wants to leave immediately. After the latter himself falls for Chel, and in a case of loose lips, accidentally makes mention of leaving Miguel behind, Miguel takes it personally. Their feud escalates after the battle with Tzekel Kahn and his mystical panther

"Yes it comes up at random, yes it's a Jaguar. I should've corrected that....aaaaaaa why do my words rush out my mouth like a tsunami"

The two recreate their fake dual from the beginning of the film that they did to escape the sailors they had conned but this time, nothing that’s being said is an act. It’s all true and after they punch Tzekel Kahn off a cliff , where he’s sucked into a river vortex, their friendship is essentially finished.

All the little annoyances and disagreements between the two building up throughout the film has come to a head and at this point, it’s very easy for the movie to put them together and make it feel unearned - same way it would’ve been easy for the plot to fall apart because let’s not forget, these are con men we are cheering for.

And the plot makes that work as yes, what these people are doing is technically morally wrong, but they’re not terrible people. Miguel goes along with the adventure and Tulio isn’t doing this to be malicious - he’s had a hard life and he’s trying to even the playing field by making his own luck. They want to take gold from a city that’s literally brimming with it - after all, not having some surely isn’t that big a problem is it? I’ll leave that to you

"Both, both. Both answers are good"

But we see that come in when they’re not only appalled by Tzekel Kahn’s actions - with Miguel finally taking a stand, losing his temper for the first time in the movie (pity this does backfire since, due to an injury he sustained during the soccer/basketball hybrid game, a knock to the head caused him to start bleeding - which to Tzekel Kahn’s belief betrays their mortal status

"Tzekel Kahn: You know why the Gods demand blood? Because Gods do not bleed!"

But they take the stand to defeat Tzekel Kahn - at first the battle with the jaguar can be written off as them trying to protect themselves, but then we have the climax where it turns out the still alive high priest is leading Cortes to the lost city

And remember this guy wanted to send two accidental stowaways to slave labor in another country….and well….conquistidores…yeah it aint’ pleasant

So the duo work together, each making a personal sacrifice to save the people of El Dorado - Miguel sacrifices the life he wants to stay behind to help Tulio’s ship garner speed before a pillar crashes and Tulio has to sacrifice the gold since well

Ya know…destroying a ship carrying something….


Yeah you’re not getting ANYTHING back

except maybe broken wood

"Wood....wood is good"

Tzekel Kahn’s evil backfires on him as Cortes believes the treacherous snake - ironic huh considering what he labelled humans as earlier - leading to him to be taken away, no doubt set to experience a fate worse than death while the trio go about on their next adventure

Which , cmon DreamWorks, give us that Road to El Dorado TV series. If ya gonna bring back Spirit of all things then cmon.

Plot wise, the movie has a strong narrative and while it does sacrifice some stuff that in a more dramatic/different toned feature would be a negative, the comedy and chemistry between the characters pushes it through, especially with all the extra touches and character tidbits you can pick on. Some as a matter of fact contributed by the actors, which I will go more in depth about below.

While the plot does trim some narratively crucial stuff, the comedy and charm of the characters carries it through and because of that it’s easy to see how the movie still brings in people after all these years and what we do have is engaging and grand enough that you do still feel that you’re on an adventure - you’re just….glancing over the tour guide pamphlets and experiencing the scenery and people instead.

The Animation

It's GOLD Jeffrey, GOLD

While a smaller story than The Prince of Egypt, the movie doesn’t apply that approach to the visuals, as the final feature is outright gorgeous in every capacity possible…..welll mostly.

This time around there’s a significant increase in the usuage of CG in the movie, in some cases said CG is actually impressive such is the case with the gold textures and the water - both effects that the studio had to create brand new renders for. With the gold it was to make it shine like the real deal - and also no doubt to add a lively color to enhance the beauty of El Dorado itself.

These backgrounds are all amazing

And now there's giant random colorful fish in the river....okayyy then.

The water itself also had new technology made for it that from my understanding - going off the behind the scenes footage, allowed artists to draw over the CG water particle simulation. I can see that in some shots since the water is well integrated with the hand drawn animation but then you get some other shots where it does stick out a lot.

And that there is a recurring trend with the CG in this movie, it gets used a looooooooooot and most of the time it does stick out. With the gold, I could excuse it as a case of wanting it to stick out to be more eye catching to the audience, but then you have random bits of the movie that get given the full CG treatment - barrels are made CG, some backgrounds too and it’s very shakey. The movie relies on it a lot to the point that it does clash a bit much with the gorgeous hand drawn animation on view.

"Look at our marvelous CG, does it not stick out"

"Yes, yes it does...."

Now I don’t know why so much CG was pushed , if it was to flex the technology or due to time constraints but with all the new tech, it’s no wonder the movie ended up with a higher budget than Prince of Egypt (96 million vs. the latter’s 60-70 million, programming and rendering ain’t cheap, also those delays). From a creative standpoint I do wish they toned down the usuage - seriously these carriages did not need to be CG - but I wouldn’t cite it as a detriment of the final film, especially one from 2000 and especially during an era where you had a lot of terrible CG being integrated with hand drawn animation that stuck out like a sore thumb. 

But when the movie goes fully hand drawn, you have these flatout gorgeous visuals that look like paintings

The Jaguar is very well integrated however

As noted above, the character animation is absolutely superb , perfectly converting each character’s personality into their movements. To get an authentic feel for the performances, the two leads would record their lines together, bouncing lines and adlibbing things off one another.

And also seemingly Jeffrey Katzenberg didn’t know the word locaquious was a thing…..and neither did I 

"Hmm...gonna need to note down that word for future use..."

With other characters, you’d have the animators in recording booth, adjusting designs and taking inspiration from the actors performances behind the booth. And this serves the final film well, every movement, every bit, perfectly blends with the performance given, sort of as if this were a live action film. Now sure you could be cynical and claim that the movie would’ve worked better had it been live action - buuuuut let us not forget, people can be cartoony and over the top and if the performance is entertaining, and blended into the animation perfectly, you get a great “animated performance” as well out of the drawings.

And these are fun performances, there isn’t that reliance to go too over the top cartoony wise, but when the characters do lean into some over the top reactions, it suits with the vibe and look of the film, rather than breaking the visual narrative and direction it had been following - eg. Imagine a more realistically animated movie like say the 2011 Tintin movie, suddenly having these wide eyed , crazy expressions like Jim Carrey’s Mask performance, it breaks how the visual narrative flows and can come off as desperate for a laugh, rather than a more natural flowing bit of humor that both catches you off guard but doesn’t create that disconnect.

I noted above all of that, but something to note too is that the movie is also…technicalllyyyyyy a musical…..I sayyy technically because there’s only 3 actual musical numbers with only one going the full musical route - Elton John and Tim Rice’s Tough to be a God. The music in the movie is all great and I do like how the movie doesn’t feel that it has to cater to it as sometimes there are musicals that will have a song number and they’ll drop everything and it does bog down the pacing or put the plot on hold. El Dorado doesn’t suffer from that, the intro theme introduces the myth behind El Dorado. “The Trail we Blaze” is a travelling montage number and it works, it’s also accompanied by fun visuals and evokes the general vibes associated with road trips or road trip movies - the ups and downs. “Tough to be a God” is the one number where we go fully into the musical visuals, flat out leaning into surreal imagery, and you’d think it’d clash with the tone of the movie.

It doesn’t and it is amusingly woven in - essentially the visuals start off normal but the moment the alcohol gets involved….then it all goes to pot

"Aw man, there isn’t any pot here at all, guess it is the city of gold and not the city of green"

Yeah the fact the song is almost entirely a drunken party does make it amusing to watch and it’s really catchy, still moving the plot and motivations along - highlighting the risks and how tricky pulling this off may be. These songs are great and deserve a lot more love and acknowledgement , I mean you got the duo that contributed to the really strong song numbers for The Lion King and that quality is still on show here too.

Closing Thoughts:

(Whoops, left the DVD case open):

The Road to El Dorado is a great comedic feature that got trapped between two other works of greatness by its mother studio but it is one that deserves the love and following its accumulated in the 25 years since its initial release.

You have great comedy, both expression and verbally with a likeable morally gray cast that all leave behind a strong impression with gorgeous visuals and songs to boot. While it may falter a bit on some crucial narrative details that would’ve strengthened the movie even more, it more than makes up for it with the experience and charm the characters maintain throughout the movie. It’s engaging and if you’ve already seen it, why not make a plan to watch it again.

The Road to El Dorado is an animated classic, worthy of being part of DreamWorks fairly long list of great works and more than worthy of seeing some form of continuation should that ever occur.

Extra Thoughts:

Amusingly there was a tie in game for the movie, perhaps it’s worth covering that some day, maybe something along obscure licensed games. Amusingly while writing this, part of me also wanted to try and see why people gravitated towards Chel - a sexy, visually appealing design only goes so far and it’d be nice to highlight more of the character herself. Same goes with the other leads, feels that with all the memes, not much really has been dived or discussed regarding them.

Also I absolutely do miss DreamWorks hand drawn style, no idea why this one flopped at the box office - my guess is that it wasn’t properly promoted for some reason , doesn’t help that April 2000 seemed to be a dreadful month for family features as well with even the Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas underperforming massively compared to its 1994 predecessor.

Seems in general 2000 was a rather lousy year for animation at the box office as well - about the only movies not considered a flop or financial disappointment seems to be Rugrats in Paris, Chicken Run and The Tigger Movie - Road to El Dorado was the 6^th highest grossing animated feature of the year so hm…..

Thank you for reading my blog, if you wish to support me, feel free to drop a donation on Ko-fi and even send a request!

https://ko-fi.com/stumblinmedia

YT video production is still underway!