The Road to El Dorado is a 2000 American animated adventure-musical comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron and Don Paul (in their feature directorial debuts) and additional sequences directed by Will Finn and David Silverman. The film stars Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Rosie Perez, Armand Assante, and Edward James Olmos.
The soundtrack features songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, as well as composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell. John is also credited periodically narrating the story in song throughout the film. The film follows two con artists who, after winning the map to El Dorado, escape from Spain. After washing ashore in the New World, they use the map to lead them to the city of El Dorado, where its inhabitants mistake them for gods.
The Road to El Dorado was released on March 31, 2000, to mixed reviews and was a box office failure, grossing $76 million worldwide on a production budget of about $95 million.
Plot[]
In 1519 Spain, two con artists, Miguel and Tulio, win a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged dice gamble (though they ironically win the map fairly). After their con is exposed, the two evade the guards and hide inside barrels, which are then loaded into one of the ships to be led by conquistador Hernán Cortés for the New World. During the voyage, they are caught as stowaways and imprisoned, but break free and take a rowboat with the help of Cortés' horse, Altivo.
Their boat reaches land, where Miguel begins to recognize landmarks from the map, leading them to a totem marker near a waterfall that Tulio believes is a dead end. As they prepare to leave, they encounter a native woman, Chel, being chased by guards. When the guards see Tulio and Miguel riding Altivo as depicted on the totem, they escort them and Chel to a secret entrance behind the falls, into El Dorado. They are brought to the city's elders, kindhearted Chief Tannabok and wicked high priest Tzekel-Kan. The pair are mistaken for gods and are given luxurious quarters, along with the charge of Chel. She discovers that the two are conning the people but promises to remain quiet if they take her with them when they leave the city. The two are showered with gifts of gold from Tannabok but disapprove of Tzekel-Kan attempting to sacrifice a civilian as the gods' ritual.
Tulio and Miguel instruct Tannabok to build them a boat so that they can leave the city with all the gifts they have been given, under the ruse that they are needed back in the 'other world.' During the three days the construction will take, Miguel explores the city, and Chel gets romantically close to Tulio. Miguel comes to appreciate the peaceful life embraced by the citizens; by then, he reconsiders leaving, especially after overhearing Tulio telling Chel that he'd like her to come with them to Spain, before adding he'd like her to come with specifically him and to forget Miguel – straining the relationship between the two.
When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he insists the "gods" demonstrate their powers against the city's best players in the same game. Tulio and Miguel are outmatched, but Chel can substitute the ball with an armadillo named Bibo, allowing them to win the rounds until the final one, where Bibo is replaced with a real ball, but once again, the two ironically win the game fairly. Miguel spares the ritual of sacrificing the losing team and chastises Tzekel-Kan, much to the crowd's approval. Tzekel-Kan notices Miguel received a small cut in the game and realizes the pair are not gods since gods do not bleed, hence the reason for the sacrifices. Afterward, Miguel and Tulio enjoy a party being thrown for them but sooner or later begin to argue about Tulio and Chel's conversation and Miguel's desire to stay. However, before they can continue, Tzekel-Kan conjures a giant stone jaguar to chase them throughout the city. Tulio and Miguel manage to outwit the jaguar, causing it and Tzekel-Kan to fall into a giant whirlpool, thought by the natives to be the entrance to Xibalba, the spirit world. Tzekel-Kan then surfaces in the jungle, where he encounters Cortés and his men. Believing Cortés to be the real god, Tzekel-Kan offers to lead them to El Dorado.
With the boat completed, Miguel decides to stay in the city. As Tulio and Chel board the boat, they see smoke on the horizon and realize Cortés is close. Knowing what will happen if Cortés discovers the city, Tulio suggests using the boat to ram the rock pillars under the waterfall and block the main entrance to the city. The plan succeeds with the citizens pulling over a statue in the boat's wake to give it enough speed. As the statue starts to fall too quickly, Tulio has difficulty in preparing the boat's sail. Giving up on staying in the city, Miguel and Altivo jump onto the boat to unfurl the sails, assuring the boat clears the statue in time. The group successfully crashes against the pillars, causing a cave-in but losing all their gifts in the process. They hide near the totem just as Cortés' men and Tzekel-Kan arrive. When they find the entrance blocked, Cortés brands Tzekel-Kan a liar and takes him, prisoner, as they leave. Tulio and Miguel, though disappointed they lost the gold (unaware that Altivo still wears the golden horseshoes with which he was outfitted in El Dorado), head in a different direction for a new adventure with Chel, presumably also looking for a way back to Spain.
Cast[]
- Kenneth Branagh as Miguel, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is more relaxed and easygoing than his con-partner Tulio.
- Kevin Kline as Tulio, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is the strategic planner, often becoming anxious and overthinking things.
- Rosie Perez as Chel, a beautiful native woman from El Dorado who discovers Tulio and Miguel's con and decides to play along to get out from El Dorado. She is also Tulio's love interest.
- Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan, the fanatically vicious high priest who has a religious fixation for human sacrifices. He initially believed Tulio and Miguel are gods until he discovered the truth.
- Edward James Olmos as Chief Tannabok, the skeptical, yet kind chief of El Dorado who questions that Tulio and Miguel are gods, though he allows them to stay out of kindness and hospitality, and because of the kindness Miguel and Tulio show to his people.
- Jim Cummings as Hernán Cortés, the merciless and ambitious conquistador leader of the expedition to find the empires of the New World.
- Cummings also voices the cook on Cortés's ship, a warrior who gets stepped on by Tzekel-Kan's stone jaguar, and the native who warns Chief Tannabok about Cortés.
- Frank Welker as Altivo, Cortés' horse who befriends Tulio and Miguel.
- Welker also voices the Bull that chases Miguel and Tulio at the beginning of the movie.
- Tobin Bell as Zaragoza, a sailor on the voyage to the New World of El Dorado and the original owner of the map, which he loses to Tulio and Miguel after a game of dice.
- Elton John as The Singing Narrator.