‘Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado’ Review: Harmless Reboot Highlights Inca Culture and Expected Family-Friendly Tropes

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If a flawed family-friendly movie can kindle the audience’s curiosity in pre-Columbian civilizations, that’s a net positive. And that’s just the effect that the brightly colored “Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado” could have, considering that the filmmakers embedded factual knowledge about the Incas into an “Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom”-like quest.

From director Alberto Belli (“The Naughty Nine”) and writer JT Billings (“Are You Afraid of the Dark?”), Nickelodeon’s mostly harmless, straight-to-streaming live-action reboot based on the popular preschool animated show “Dora the Explorer” digs into the origins of the heroine’s passion for discovery. Different from the 2019 theatrical film “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” the title character (played by Samantha Lorraine) became enamored with the endless possibilities of adventure as a child watching archeologist Camila the Crusader (Daniella Pineda) on TV.

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While the previous movie featured Dora’s parents prominently, here the central relationship is with her cousin Diego (Jacob Rodriguez). But even that dynamic has drastically changed. Here, Diego has always gone along with Dora’s thrill-seeking antics. The two of them even have a secret handshake inspired by the ancient Inca concepts their late grandfather instilled in them. That mom and dad are mostly absent, as well as her tight bond with Diego, turns this good-natured iteration closer to the original source material.

In the previous big-screen production, Diego expressed embarrassment at his cousin’s peculiar personality, in part because in that story he lived in Los Angeles and Dora is plucked from the jungle and dropped into urban life. The difference in approach between the two adaptations is stark — and not only because the 2019 movie starred such better-known stars as Eva Longoria and Michael Peña. The broad tone of “Search for Sol Dorado” feels suited for a TV movie whose purpose is to be enjoyed at home by young audiences. Not that the predecessor was subtle by any means, but the humor read a tad more satirical.

After discovering that Camila, her childhood idol, has turned into a selfish treasure hunter in search of a powerful Inca bracelet, Dora, Diego, his ex-girlfriend Naiya (Mariana Garzón Toro) and her kid brother Sonny (Acston Luca Porto) escape her henchmen and slowly collect the charms that will guide them closer to Sol Dorado, a force that will grant them one wish. There’s an expected saccharine undercurrent to most interactions within this emotionally heightened reality, which is not helped by the forced used of sporadic phrases and words in Spanish. As unnatural as the mix of languages sounds, that defining quality of the educational program is a key component of why Dora has endured so long.

And yet some shrewd elements demonstrate the purposeful research involved (Dora and Diego can read the Inca quipu, a series of knots that communicate a message), and Billings’ amusing foresight to include situations that poke fun at Dora’s enthusiastic demeanor: She and Diego work at Camila’s kitschy amusement park, where animatronics replace real animals and nature feels artificial, which baffles Dora.

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Lorraine’s disarmingly bubbly performance infuses the Paramount+ release with the effortless charm it requires to move along smoothly, if predictably. It’s when that happy-go-lucky, can-do attitude crashes with Rodriguez’s kind Diego, who wants to live his own escapades away from the jungle, that the movie finds its dramatic crux. Can the cousins, lifelong partners in countless exploits, remain as important in each other’s lives despite the distance? Will Dora be able to find her own path without a rigid map telling her where she should go next?

One of the most perplexing and detrimental aesthetic choices implemented here pertains to the emblematic animals in Dora’s purview. Whereas in the 2019 movie, Boots, the friendly monkey that accompanies the heroine, and Swiper, a cunning fox, were digitally crafted characters that reflected the design of their 2D-animated counterparts, in “Search for Sol Dorado,” both of them have been turned into hyperrealist creatures.

Not only does Boots looks closer to a real monkey, meaning he’s lost his cartoonish charm, but he now speaks in sassy replies voiced by comedian Gabriel Iglesias — the result feels jarring. And this take on Swiper is under the command of the villainess but has a minuscule, forgettable presence. If that decision derived from the financial constraints of a non-theatrical project, it doesn’t show elsewhere, as the production design, namely caves and tombs with sophisticated bobby traps, artifacts, human skeletons and secret passages shine for their tangible look. Whether historically accurate or not, they appear authentic to these imagined environments, while also exciting in their conception. Dangerous enough to raise the stakes, but not too gruesome to shock young viewers.

And yet, even with those unflattering visual glitches and less-than-original tropes at play, that a movie with a bilingual Latina lead, where Indigenous cultures from the Americas have a prominent place and are celebrated, might reach millions of households in this country at this current moment in time has great value beyond its artistic shortcomings.

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