Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Isabela Merced, Benicio Del Toro, Eva Longoria, Michael Pena, Joey Viera, Pia Miller, Jeff Wahlberg, Adriana Barraza, Nicholas Coombe, Natasa Ristic, Christopher Kirby, Temuera Morrison, Christopher Rawlins, Eugenio Derbez, Isela Vega, Danny Trejo. 

One of the moments you know you have become an adult is when you can sit through what is being billed as a film for young adults, the teenage market and find that not only have enjoyed the absolute sense of fun that was intended, but that you can find the sense of the pearls of wisdom dispensed enlightening, rather than sneering at them through misguided eyes.

To forget that fun is…well enjoyable, is to grow old, to become dull, to find that all that is younger than you a bore and to find fault; you may as well pin  a badge to your lapel declaring a sense of bigotry, of prejudice and complain that your own generation is being side-lined. You are never too old to explore something new, to rediscover the delights of a different time and outlook of your life, and to be captivated by the sun shining on a different way of thinking.

Such exploration might come unexpectedly, and it is in Dora And The Lost City Of Gold that the surprise is greatly received. A young Indiana Jones film it may not be, but it doesn’t fall too far from that sense of adventure, from the belief that it installs in hoping to teach, to enlighten the truth of preserving and celebrating ancient cultures, not ransacking them, selling off for the chance of fortune and obscene fame.

If the original Nickelodeon series taught the incredibly young to see the world as an embracement of culture and learning, then Dora And The Lost City Of Gold expands marvellously upon that premise, even finding a way to send itself up in the process, and with superb performances by Nicholas Coombe as Dora’s friend Randy, Michael Pena and the burgeoning young talent of Isabela Merced in the lead role of the spirited explorer who has to undergo adaption of her native home in the jungle for one of the more socially disheartening in High School, the film finds a way to endear itself to the audience member, to achieve something of a miracle, that of empathy in a different generation’s hero.

Pleasing, full of fun and adventure, Dora And The Lost City Of Gold is a film that understands that learning never stops being vital.

Ian D. Hall