It’s been a while since Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour romanced their way to Singapore and points beyond. I don’t expect them back — I don’t know where Lamour is these days, but Crosby is dead and Hope, who is in his nineties, seldom appears in public anymore. ⁽¹⁾

Nevertheless, DreamWorks SKG’s new cartoon film The Road to El Dorado makes a stab at taking us back to those halcyon days. The film’s creators did not make the mistake of turning Miguel into a bad imitation of Crosby, nor is Tullio any Hope, and Chel makes Lamour look positively Twiggy-ish, but there are occasional similarities, particularly in terms of situations, most notably in Miguel and Tullio’s ability to cooperatively finesse their way out of dangerous situations a la Crosby and Hope.

Tullio (voice by Kevin Kline) and Miguel (thespian Kenneth Branagh) are two con-men in the Spain of 1519 who, after acquiring a map purporting to show the route to the lost city of El Dorado, are chased by an angry mob and inadvertently stow themselves away aboard the flagship of Cortez’s fleet on its way to Cuba and points beyond. After several unpleasant experiences, they find themselves, complete with the map and Cortez’s trained and highly intelligent warhorse Altivo, cast away on the Mesoamerican shore. From here they make their unlikely way through the jungle to the ancient city of El Dorado, where they meet the voluptuous Chel (Rosie Perez), whose main ambition in life is to be elsewhere, and whose own larcenous nature is true match for those of Tullio and Miguel. They also find themselves greeted as gods and thrust right into the midst of a power struggle between the temporal (The Chief — voice of Edward James Olmos) and the religious (High Priest Tzekel-Kan — voice of Armand Assante), and both must, over their three days in the city, make several decisions — and change them from time to time — about what they will do with their lives. Meanwhile, Cortez and his men are also plowing through the jungle, drawing ever closer to El Dorado. And we all know what Cortez does with native cities that he finds, particularly when there is gold to be had …

The artwork is fairly good, but nothing spectacular by current standards. Tullio and Miguel bear at least passing resemblances to the owners of their voices. The Chief, however, who must weigh upwards of 300 pounds, doesn’t look much like the Olmos of Stand and Deliver. I enjoyed most of the musical pieces, as well as the background themes. There are special effects you can do in cartoons that would be next to impossible elsewhere; see the climactic scenes with the boat, the pillars and the tidal wave.

For a nifty in-joke, keep your eyes open as Tzekel-Kan leafs through his magical codex.

All in all, a fun way to pass an hour and a half on a Friday evening.

Incidentally, this summer looks like it’s going to be an all-animation season, with the new Rugrats film (“In Paris”), the Pokémon 2000 Movie, something called Chicken Run, Disney’s Dinosaurs — The Land Beyond Time meets Deep Impact — and the crown jewel, the science-fiction high-adventure flic Titan A.E. Enjoy.

⁽¹⁾ Nevertheless, given the state of the art in computer generation of 3D art and voices today, it should be possible, within the next decade, to create a whole new “Road” movie complete with a Crosby, a Hope and a Lamour indistinguishable from the real individuals. The Road to Mars, anyone? (Note added to web review: since this was originally written, Bob Hope has passed on.)