Pirate Cartoon: The Road to El Dorado

"For Spain! For Glory! For Gold!"

The Road to El Dorado is actually not a pirate cartoon. It is a story about Spanish plundering of the South America. Main characters are two Spanish swindlers, Miguel and Tulio, who accidentally came in possession of map that reveals secret location of El Dorado. Unintentionally, they get aboard a Spanish ship that is about to sail to the New World. Just before they reached their destination, they escaped and started to search for the City of Gold, El Dorado, by themselves.

Cartoon begins with words of Cortes: “Today we sail to conquer the New World! For Spain! For Glory! For Gold!” Maybe, this is just a cartoon, but this is really the best way to describe the some events from beginning of the 16th century. Spain was one of the strongest countries in the Europe, both economically and military and she wanted to expend influence even more. Pirate invasion of the Caribbean in the following years, was caused with these conquests.

The City El Dorado (sometimes spelled as Eldorado) is mythical city that is supposed to be somewhere in the South America. Creators of The Road to El Dorado imagined it, as combination of ancient civilizations of Mayas, Aztecs and Incas.

There are several historical mistakes. Hernan Cortes was conquistador in the Mexico, not the South America. The conquistador, who wanted to find El Dorado, was actually Gonzalo Pizarro. He was searching for that city in 1541.

Despite all misinterpretations, Road to El Dorado is an excellent cartoon. Music by Elton John and Tim Rice perfectly fits in atmosphere of the movie.

Rating of the movie is PG because it has mild thematic material and language.