‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ Film Review: Old-School Family Adventure Strikes It Rich

When “Dora the Explorer” made her debut on Nickelodeon in 2000, she not only became the first animated Latina character in a leading role but also birthed what would become the longest-running American TV show that featured characters speaking Spanish. (The show is still running on Nickelodeon with new episodes). Nineteen years later, Dora gets the live-action treatment in “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” and despite an awkward first act, the film harkens back to the family-adventure genre that today’s parents can recall from their own childhoods. Dora (Isabela Moner, “Instant Family”) and her parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) have lived in the jungles of South America for all of Dora’s life. The jungle is her home, her school and her playground, and like many young teenagers she runs through her life documenting everything with a GoPro strapped on, speaking to an invisible audience about the wonders of exploring the rain forest. For over a decade, in between homeschooling Dora and creating a family life in the jungle, her professor parents have been searching for the lost Incan city of Parapata and have just found the key to its location somewhere in the jungles of Peru. Watch...