Dora, a girl who has spent most of her life exploring the jungle with her parents, now must navigate her most dangerous adventure yet: high school. Always the explorer, Dora quickly finds herself leading Boots (her best friend, a monkey), Diego, and a rag tag group of teens on an adventure to save her parents and solve the impossible mystery behind a lost Inca civilization.
I’m not Incan or Mexican so I can’t comment of the portrayal of Native peoples of South America. The Quechua queen is played by a Quechua actress and Quechua is spoken in multiple scenes though I cannot say if it’s accurate.
I loved that one of the secondary characters is played by an Aboriginal Australian actress as I am Aboriginal myself and it seems rare to see First Nations Aussies in media, even Aussie media. It also has an acknowledgment of the traditional Yugambeh peoples of the land that it was filmed on. That and it being filmed in Australia also explains why the schools don’t look very American and the foliage in some areas is Aussie flora.
Dora is quite autistic, ADHD and possibly even psychosis coded depending on how you view her and she does get bullied at first by her peers. If this is something that upsets you, I’d avoid this movie or watch with caution.
Dora talks to people and things that are not there of have no ability to talk back, but thinks they are. Later we find out Boots can talk this whole time but might be an unreliable narrator thing.
There are a few bits that poke fun at the original show, primarily at the beginning where Dora talks to the camera which illicit confusion from her family
Yes, at 1:20:20, right after the line "What is that, some sort of ancient Inca group hug?", two or three spiders crawl out of a hole in the wall. It's shortly after the team line up the light reflections, and happens VERY soon after the 'group hug' line. The spiders are only shown for a few seconds.
There is a boa constrictor hanging around Dora's neck. The snake does not harm her & she's also calm while having it around her neck. She even makes a joke about it.
(Spoiler) Dora's parents are taken hostage by the villains of the movie, and she believes it's likely they might get killed if they don't do something. They turn out fine, however.
A scene where a character decides to take off all his clothes and run around. No nudity is ever fully shown except for a (cartoon) bare b**t and his chest later on.
Some "bathroom humor" on a few occasions. There is a scene where the main characters are in quicksand that makes noises not unlike a fart, and they make some jokes about this. There's another reference to a character needing to poop.
The characters have to fit through rather tight spaces in some occasions, and some other locations they're in might make some viewers feel uncomfortable in some way.
After Swiper takes the small monkey statue, the whole of Parapata begins to shake & shatter violently. When Dora places it back, Parpata returns to its original state.
Dora as a child talks to the camera/at something that isn’t there and thinks her pet monkey can talk. She is talked about as if she is weird for it. Her parents say she will “grow out of it” and even joke about her possibly having hallucinations/delusions. She is alienated as a teen from her peers for being “weird” and not having social skills after not being around other kids. She reads as AuDHD. No one even prepares her for what is expected from a school, let alone one in a different country so all her struggles to fit in are because she’s unaware of the difference in social expectations and roles. Dora talks to people and things that are not there of have no ability to talk back, but thinks they are. Later we find out Boots can talk this whole time but might be an unreliable narrator thing.
Some sexual innuendos, including a part where it is initially believed that two male scorpions are fighting but it is later revealed that it was a male and female scorpion mating.