The Road to El Dorado (U)

This has got to be one of the most underrated films I have ever seen. But as a 1994 animation from Dreamworks it got heavily overshadowed by Disney.

The plotline is pretty generic: two Spanish guys, Miguel and Tulio, wind up in the fabled city of El Dorado where the public there think that they're gods. And of course, they have to keep up that facade as best they can. But the details of the film cover up the cliche and turn it into something fun; particularly when Chel, a female Aztec thief, gets involved. The action scenes in the plotline are fairly mild on the "intensity" scale, and are quite few and far between, but the antagonist vs. protagonist theme isn't the biggest focus in the film anyway.

The jokes are not only clean but clever, and brilliantly timed. The ones from Miguel especially are frequently laced with beautifully-done sarcasm. Even the slapstick moments retain their intelligence. Which means that the film is just as ideal for the parents as it is for the children.