Dora the Explorer is way past my childhood so I have no familiarity with the franchise and I wouldn’t ordinarily choose to watch a kid’s film like this. What convinced me is online word-of-mouth and the fact that this film’s reputation seems to have improved over time. The fourth wall breaking jokes I remember seeing in the trailer helped too. In the event. this is exactly as advertised a kid’s adventure film that embraces the fact that it was adapted from an animated show. It’s unashamedly positive, pointedly runs on cartoon logic and I love how it has the storyline of a children’s show, yet never considers the audience to be stupid.

Dora’s parents are explorers who raise her in the Peruvian jungle where she befriends only her monkey Boots and various inanimate objects. At the age of 16, her parents send her to reunite with her cousin Diego in Los Angeles while they search for the lost Incan city of Parapata. In the city, Dora’s unrelenting cheerfuliness embarasses Diego and she fails to make friends despite trying her best. She is further dispirited when her parents fall out of contact with her. While on a field trip to a museum, she is put into a group with Diego, star student Sammy and Randy, a socially awkward nerd. There Dora is lured into the archives and the entire group of kids are kidnapped by a group of mercenaries. They are taken back to Peru where they are searching for Dora’s parents in order to get at the gold said to be hidden in Parapata. There they run into Alejandro, an adult who claims to be a friend of Dora’s parents and is worried about them. Together they set off to find her parents while staying one step ahead of the mercenaries.

I love that the movie is so upfront that it operates on cartoon logic. Boots the monkey is CGI that deliberately looks CGI instead of trying to be realistic. Early on, Dora tries to jump over a ravine, fails and falls. But don’t worry, she’s not hurt at all because this isn’t the kind of movie in which people or animals get hurt. A recurring character is Swiper the fox who works on behalf of the mercenaries. He’s even less realistic as he can seemingly communicate with the villains and there is no explanation whatsoever for it. I presume that all of these characters are references to the many animated shows I didn’t watch. It’s all very silly but it works. The pacing is smooth, allowing characters to have their say and the story to move forward without feeling either too rushed or too slow. The humor is fun and actually not cringe even as the other characters cringe on Dora’s behalf. There’s one very obvious twist but I appreciated how the story is simple and straightforward without the need for convoluted plots. The formula of a kid’s adventure movie is a well-established one and this film follows it to a tee. There are no surprises but there is something to said for perfect execution.

Thinking it over, what appeals to me here is that it embraces the positivity and means it. Other shows tout their own moralizing lessons but that often comes with elbowing and winking. They seem to like inserting a bit of edginess into the message in order to appeal to older audiences. Often they’ll also add in a bunch of pop culture references and snide jokes to broaden the appeal. There’s none of this here. This is Dora the Explorer in live-action, as accurately as is feasible. It correctly assumes that anyone sitting down to watch this already knows what they’re in for. It’s a film that knows and respects its audience. It’s still a kid’s movie of course and so your expectation will have to be moderated. But I think these movies have their place and this is definitely one of the better ones.