The Road to El Dorado

The Road to El Dorado
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Eric "Bibo" Bergeron Don Paul
Produced by	Brook Breton Bonne Radford
Written by	Philip LaZebnik
Screenplay by	Ted Elliott Terry Rossio
Story by	Hugh Thomas (book)
Starring	Kevin Kline Kenneth Branagh Armand Assante Edward James Olmos Rosie Perez Jim Cummings
Music by	Songs: Elton John Tim Rice (lyrics) Score: Hans Zimmer John Powell
Editing by	John Carnochan Dan Molina
Studio	DreamWorks Animation Stardust Pictures
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures (through Universal Pictures)
Release date(s)	March 31, 2000 (2000-03-31)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$95 million
Box office	$76,432,727

The Road to El Dorado is a 2000 American animated adventure musical comedy film by DreamWorks. The soundtrack features songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, the music team from Disney's The Lion King.

The movie begins in 16th century (1519) Seville (in the south of Spain) and tells about two men named Tulio and Miguel. During a dice game using loaded dice, they win a map that purportedly shows the location of El Dorado, the legendary city of gold in the New World. However, their cheating is soon discovered and as a result, they end up as stowaways on Hernán Cortés' fleet to conquer Mexico. They are discovered, but manage to escape in a boat with Cortés' prize war horse and eventually discover the hidden city of El Dorado where they are mistaken for gods. It is inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King.

El Dorado is portrayed as a utopian civilization that combines facets of the Aztecs, Maya, Incas, and Atlantis, and located in Ecuador or El Salvador.

Its soundtrack was released as an album with the same name; however, in some instances (such as "The Trail We Blaze"), the songs have been altered musically and vocally from the way they appeared in the film. The video game tie-in, released on PlayStation, Game Boy Color and PC, was named Gold & Glory: The Road to El Dorado.

Production

The creation of The Road to El Dorado was a challenge for the studio because DreamWorks Animation had devoted most of its creative efforts to its previous animated film, The Prince of Egypt.

Plot

In Spain 1519, two con artists, Tulio (voiced by Kevin Kline) and Miguel (Kenneth Branagh) win a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged gambling match (though ironically they end up winning the map fairly). After being accused of cheating with loaded dice, the two evade capture while getting chased by a bull and hide in barrels, which are shortly loaded onto one of the ships to be led by Hernán Cortés (Jim Cummings) to the New World. During the trip, they are caught as stowaways, but manage to break free and take a rowboat with the help of Cortés' horse, Altivo (vocal effects by Frank Welker). They land at an unknown shore, and Miguel begins to recognize landmarks stated on the map. The map leads them to a totem marker outside of a waterfall. As they try to decipher the markings on the totem, a young woman approaches them, chased by a number of guards. The guards see the image of Tulio and Miguel riding Altivo as the same on the totem, and believing them to be gods, escort them and the woman under the falls and into El Dorado, truly a city made of gold.

Tulio and Miguel are brought to the city's elders, Chief Tannabok (Edward James Olmos) and wicked medicine man Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante). While Tannabok warmly welcomes them to the city, Tzekel-Kan mainly sees them as a way to enhance his own standing. After celebrations offered by both Tannabok and Tzekel-Kan, the two are taken to private quarters along with the woman, Chel (Rosie Perez), who has seen through their ploy but offers to help maintain it as long as they take her with them when they leave. Tulio tells Tannabok the next day they are only here for a visit, but will need a boat built to leave the city with the gifts the city has showered them with; Tannabok says it will take them a few days to construct a vessel.

As they spend time with the locals, Miguel finds the city peaceful and expresses interest in staying. Chel encourages Miguel to continue to explore the city, allowing her to become closer to Tulio. When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he demands that the gods play against the city's best players. During the match, Tulio and Miguel are clearly over-matched, but Chel replaces the ball with a rolled-up armadillo, allowing the two to cheat and win the game. During the match, Tzekel-Kan sees a small cut on Miguel's forehead, and realizes that they are not gods. To show this to the rest of the city, Tzekel-Kan conjures a giant stone jaguar to chase them through the city. Though somewhat intimidated at first, Tulio and Miguel manage to outwit the stone jaguar, causing both it and Tzekel-Kan to fall into a giant whirlpool, thought to be the entrance to Xibalba, the spirit world. Tzekel-Kan comes to outside El Dorado, where Cortés and his men are searching for gold. Tzekel-Kan, thinking Cortes is a god (a reference to the fall of the Aztec Empire), quickly offers to lead them to El Dorado.

With their boat completed and loaded with treasures, Tulio is ready to leave but Miguel announces that he will be staying. As Tulio and Chel start to leave, they spot smoke on the horizon, realizing that Cortés and his men are approaching the city with the help from Tzekel-Kan, hoping to take it over. To protect the city from the Spanish troops, Tulio determines they can use the boat to slam against rock formations under the waterfall path that will cave in and block access to the city, but they will need to give the boat enough speed to do so. The city's residents start to pull down a large statue to create a wave to propel the boat, but Tulio cannot get the sails up to give the boat enough speed to avoid the statue. Miguel forgoes his chance to stay in the city and jumps into the boat with Altivo to finish hoisting the sails. The boat clears the statue in time, and Tulio's plan is successful; though the boat and its treasures are lost, the entrance to El Dorado is sealed for good. Tulio, Miguel, Chel, and Altivo hide as Tzekel-Kan brings Cortés and his men towards the waterfall. Once Tzekal-Kan finds out that the entrance has been blocked, an angry Cortés takes this as a lie, and orders his men to place Tzekel-Kan into custody for leading them for nothing. Cortes and his men then march away with a humiliated Tzekel-Kan in their hands. Tulio, Miguel, and Chel, though disappointed they lost their treasure, take off in a different direction for a new adventure, unaware that Altivo still wears the golden horseshoes he was outfitted with in the city, and prefers to keep that fact to himself.

Cast

• Kevin Kline as Tulio, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is the planner who wanted to leave El Dorado with the treasure.
• Kenneth Branagh as Miguel, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is the fun-loving one who wants to stay in El Dorado.
• Rosie Perez as Chel, a beautiful young woman from El Dorado who discovers Tulio and Miguel's con and decides to play along. In exchange, she will return to Spain with them and get some of the gold. She falls in love with Tulio.
• Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan, the fanatically insane high priest who has a fixation for human sacrifices.
• Edward James Olmos as Chief Tannabok, the kind chief who welcomes Tulio and Miguel.
• Jim Cummings as Hernán Cortés, the merciless and ambitious leader of the expedition to find El Dorado.
• Tobin Bell as Zaragoza
• Frank Welker as Altivo, Cortés' horse who ends up teaming up with Tulio and Miguel.

Soundtrack

Main article: The Road to El Dorado (soundtrack)

The original score was composed by Hans Zimmer and John Powell and performed by Zimmer, whilst the original songs were written by Tim Rice and Elton John and performed by Elton John. The song "It's Tough to be a God" is a duet performed between John and Randy Newman.

Annie Awards

Award	Winner/Nominee Recipient(s)	Result
Animated Theatrical Feature		Nominated
Individual Achievement in Storyboarding	Jeff Snow (Story supervisor)	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Production Design	Christian Schellewald (Production Designer)	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Character Animation	David Brewster (Senior Supervising animator - Miguel)	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Character Animation	Rodolphe Guendonen (Supervising Animator - Chel)	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Effects Animation	Doug Ikeler (Effects Lead - Crashing the Gate)	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Voice Acting	Armand Assante ("Tzekel-Kan")	Nominated
Individual Achievement in Music	Hans Zimmer (Music) John Powell (Music)	Nominated

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 49% "rotten" rating out of 101 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with 49 positive reviews, making this the first DreamWorks animated film to earn a "rotten" rating. Critics said the predictable story and thin characters made for a flat film.

Box office

The film earned $12,846,652 on opening weekend, for a $3,992 average from 3,218 theaters. The film earned second place at the box office that weekend, behind Erin Brockovich. The film had a good hold in its second weekend, down only 29% to $9,085,803 and finishing in third place for a $2,819 average from 3,223 theaters. The film closed on June 29, 2000, after earning $50,863,742 domestically and $25,568,985 overseas for a worldwide total of $76,432,727. Produced on a $95 million budget, the film is considered a box office bomb.

Planned/Unmade sequels

DreamWorks had plans to make movies about Tulio and Miguel (along with Chel and Altivo) searching for other Legends, but due to the poor box-office performance, the series was scrapped.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Official Website
• The Road to El Dorado at the Internet Movie Database
• The Road to El Dorado at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Road to El Dorado at Box Office Mojo
• The Road to El Dorado at AllRovi
• The Road to El Dorado at Rotten Tomatoes