I’ll just say it- Boy what a stinker…
It does look nice. I will grant it that but that’s really the only praise I have for it.It’s insulting, stupid, inappropriate for children, tonally off and full of unpleasant or underdeveloped characters. In other words, a mess.
But wait…I can hear you saying ‘didn’t you like Atlantis and isn’t that very similar?’.
No it’s not. Atlantis creates a whole new world with its own culture, people, even language, so nobody is insulted because the culture doesn’t exist (plus it’s inherently more creative and interesting to see something imagined than a cheap reproduction of a people and society). There is also a whole cast of characters in Atlantis I found extremely likable and engaging. Atlantis actually embraces diversity. This says white people are smarter and better then those silly natives. The action is well paced in Atlantis and aside from a skimpy swimsuit it is appropriate for kids. So no the two are not alike at all.
The boys find the lost city surprisingly quickly and of course they are immediately treated like Gods in an offensive caricature of native traditions and people. It’s worse, much worse, than Pocahontas. It’s one thing for Redman in Peter Pan to exist in 1953 but in 2000 to have the kind of at best culturally insensitive characters, story and behavior is really quite shocking. At least Atlantis had a certain reverence and awe at its imaginary culture. This was so bad.
We even get a quasi form of soccer that is embarrassing. I don’t know what they were thinking.
But to make it worse it’s surprisingly vulgar for a childrens movie and the princess Chel wears practically nothing and there is a scene where it is strongly implied her and Tulio have sex. I was shocked.
Like I said it looks nice but I thought this was a real bomb. No wonder it did so poorly at the box office. I mean who was it made for? It’s too grown up for most little kids and too stupid and predictable for adults/teens. Someone was telling me on twitter the studio got involved kind of like Disney and Hunchback and made them change things around so they are in El Dorado longer. It feels that way. I smell a rat!
This is the era when Jeffrey Katzenberg was heavily involved with stories and the Dreamworks animation films and I don’t know what he was thinking? He usually has good taste but this is tawdry insulting junk.
I normally don’t review the stinkers but I think it being on Netflix a lot of people will turn it on and I hope this review can sway at least my friends away from it. I was really offended by it and I don’t get offended that easily. There is so much good animation on Netflix. Move on to the next option.
This is a reminder of why I don’t want to review the Dreamworks Canon. Yuck.
Content Grade- C Overall Grade- F