There are a couple of things that immediately endear James Bobin’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold to an audience —that the protagonist is a fearless Latina female, and that the cast is multi-racial.
The film is the live-action version of the Nickelodeon animated TV series about Dora The Explorer, and is wholesome in a nice old-fashioned way. The seven-year-old Dora of the series has grown up to be the 16-year-old (played by (Isabela Moner); she lives with her zoologist mother (Eva Longoria) and archaeologist father (Michael Pena) in a swanky jungle home in South America. She is sent to Los Angeles to study at a proper school and get acquainted with the real world, when her parents embark on an expedition to find the legendary Incan city of Parapata. She has her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) to help her cope with the minefield of the American high school. Obviously, the urban milieu is alien to her, she comes across as weird, is targeted for some ragging and nicknamed “Dorka.”
Soon, Dora and Diego, along with the nasty Sammy (Madeleine Madden) and nerdy Randy (Nicholas Coombe), are kidnapped by mercenaries, who want the treasure her parents are looking for. They are freed by Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez), a grown up, to guide or perhaps confuse them.
Dora, her pals and her chattering monkey Boots (there is also a wicked talking fox, Swiper voiced by Benicio del Toro) are flung into an Indiana Jones-ish escapade, to find Dora’s parents before the villains reach Parapata; the action and danger are considerably toned down for the target audience of kids.
Dora is unflappable and says things like, “If you just believe in yourself, anything is possible,” without sounding annoying upbeat. She could be seen as an inspiration for young girls, with her thirst for knowledge and adventure, like a younger, de-sexualised Lara Croft.
Isabel Moner is charmingly vivacious and will hopefully have a Dora franchise to herself; as it is there are so few heroines for kids to look up to, and have fun following.
