Live-action ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ is LOL quirky fun

Disney, take note: This is how to do a winning live-action update of a cartoon.

“Dora and the Lost City of Gold” is spun off from the popular “Dora the Explorer” Nickelodeon cartoon, which debuted in 2000. This update boasts a terrific comic pedigree, with director James Bobin (“Flight of the Conchords,” “The Muppets”) and co-writer Nicholas Stoller (director of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), and it’s having a lot of good-natured fun. “Dora” references the educational show in a tone aimed at its now-teen fan base: “Can YOU say ‘delicioso’?” the endlessly cheerful Dora (Isabela Moner) says to the camera while dining with her parents (Eva Longoria and Michael Peña) — who look at each other like their daughter might be certifiable. And the jokes snowball from there; I can’t remember when I’ve laughed out loud this much in a kids’ movie.

The plot, which takes 16-year-old Dora, her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and their pals (Nicholas Coombe and Madeleine Madden) on an archaeological chase, is a passable delivery vehicle for snappy dialogue. Eugenio Derbez (“Overboard”) joins as a neurotic adventurer, and Dora’s animated monkey sidekick, Boots, is amusingly voiced by tough guy Danny Trejo.

Dora, who has a tendency to burst into song, comes up with a memorable one to accompany her friend having a bathroom emergency in the wild, while another sequence sees the gang morphing into cartoons after unwittingly inhaling jungle-plant spores. You’d never know any of this quirky stuff from the trailer, which portrays “Dora” as a generic kiddie action flick.

Can YOU say “badly marketed”?

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