Vue Cinema, Westfield London, Sunday morning around 10:30am and I’m stood stroking the back of a very friendly python (non-harmful of course). I’ve been completely inundated with pastries, cookies and fruit, with as much tea/coffee/juice as I could shake a stick at. So safe to say it was a warm welcome, and a very well organised event from all involved. The screen wasn’t packed because they had plenty of screens showing the film with a mixture of families and critics alike, which was nice.

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold tells the story of a grown up Dora the Explorer moving to the “big city” (in this case, Los Angeles) to become more accustom to real life as she has spent all of her life thus far living in the jungle, not to be confused with Mean Girls.

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The film starred up and coming actress Isabela Moner (Instant Family, Transformers) who managed to perfectly capture Dora’s innocence and unbeknown sass. I was already laughing aloud at around 5 minutes in when Dora’s Dad, played brilliantly by the ever hilarious Michael Pena, called her out on her famous “Can you say *insert Spanish word here* kids?” talking to camera. Absolutely brilliant and proof that even the filmmakers knew the film they were making was ridiculous. Pena and Eva Longoria stole the show as Dora’s explorer parents, hilarious and completely self aware.

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I was unsure about the drug inflicted cartoon sequence, it was an interesting attempt to entertain the adults and confused the crap out of the children. The script wasn’t great, the “shocking” twist at the end of the third act was very predictable and the forced love story was painful and tedious.

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Boots (Dora’s trusty talking monkey side kick) was probably my favourite part of the film, funny and cute and everything you want and expect from an animal side kick. Shame about the CGI being completely weightless and badly acted against, but he provided some light relief. I didn’t understand the character Swiper, he didn’t really have a lot of relevance to the story – I’m guessing he’s from the cartoon series and kids probably love him so they didn’t want to leave him out of the film. It was a hilarious surprise to see he was voiced by Benecio Del Toro.

 

Overall I think kids will absolutely love it and the parents will be embarrassed to laugh along with it, safe to say James Bobin has found his niche with family fun summer holiday hits.