People hardly talked about this when it was new. Neither the trailer nor the excerpt I caught on TV tempted me. But a couple memes signal its sleeper cult hit status. I chose it partly to get references and partly to kill less than 90 minutes.
Sixteenth-century Spanish scoundrels Miguel (Kevin Kline) and Tulio (Kenneth Branagh) use loaded dice to win a map purporting to lead to the rumored city of gold. Being only so sneaky, they get clapped in the brig of a ship by Hernán Cortés himself (Jim Cummings) but escape in a rowboat with help from Altivo (Frank Welker), perhaps the smartest horse outside of Tangled. After weeks of mixed luck, they meet the remote El Doradans, who mistake them for prophesied divine visitors. A nice gig if you can get it, but you don't have to see or read The Man Who Would Be King to know how tenuous their status is....
Fortunately, the first local to catch on is Chel (Rosie Perez), a con in her own right, who'll help them keep up the charade until they abscond with treasure as long as she comes too and gets a substantial share. Unfortunately, as Miguel grows close to Chel, Tulio feels alienated. He might just prefer to play god indefinitely.
More importantly, they find themselves at odds with High Priest Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante), who expects them to welcome human sacrifices. As he falls from the favor of suspicious yet gracious Chief Tannabook (Edward James Olmos), he loses faith in their divinity -- and plans to use his real magic to, well, prove them mortal. Lest you think he's the sole major villain, the threat of nasty Cortés lurks nearby....
If the title reminds you of a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby vehicle, that's intentional. The only one of those I've seen is Road to Morocco, which has a sense of humor fit for a contemporary Looney Tunes short: uproarious at the time but now dated. Miguel and Tulio do mesh pretty well as they navigate a new land with inexplicably no language barrier. They get one song in this so-called musical; the rest are a background soundtrack by Elton John.
I'd say TRtED is a product of its time as well. The lackluster performance of recent Disney animations had inspired multiple studios to do their best to capture the spirit. This one's more The Emperor's New Groove than a princess tale or whatnot. It might also be the last hand-drawn DreamWorks effort, albeit with slight CG enhancements during some action sequences. I kinda miss the look. And like other DreamWorks pictures around then, it pushed the envelope for what was acceptable in family features.
The rating is firmly PG by 2000 standards. We see mild bloodshed and a small body count, but I'm more concerned about naughtiness. Never mind the pun on a swear; Tulio and Chel are implied to go far together, if you get my drift. Not that I blame him: From a physical standpoint, her hotness may put Kida to shame.
That last point aside, I still like Atlantis: The Lost City better. TRtED, with its rapid-fire predictable ironies, had trouble getting me to laugh or care what happens to its characters. When they're not greedy and dishonest, they're usually goofy. Only toward the end do the heroes learn to care about more than their own luxury, when the relative seriousness leads to relative slowness. And if you want an animal cuter than Altivo, you'll have to settle for a random armadillo.
I can't say the flick rose above my expectations. It never achieved outright greatness. But it did its job for the night.
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