Tad, the Lost Explorer, and the Secret of King Midas (2018)

Powerful

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I sat down to watch "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" (aka "Tadeo Jones 2: El secreto del Rey Midas") with my 8 year old son.It turned out that we actually both quite liked the storyline and were more than adequately entertained by what we saw here. Not only did "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" have an entertaining storyline and plot, but it was also an abundance of fun and laughs. Most of which were produced by the mummy sidekick.Neither of us were aware that this was not the first movie, but I guess it doesn't require you to have watched the first movie, because I didn't feel that I was missing out on anything, well aside from the story of how Tad and the mummy got to know one another, as it was hinted to in the story.The animation style was quite good and it was a nice treat to look at on the screen. We saw an English dubbed version of this, which actually worked out well enough, despite it being a dub. Usually dubbed versions suffer from a terrible voice acting performance, but not "Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas"."Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas" has something for all ages. My son liked it because it was, well let's just be honest, an animated movie. I enjoyed it for the comedy, storyline and its light-hearted similarity to "Indiana Jones" in a sense.

My entire family loved the first one and we bought this as soon as we saw there was a sequel. Though not as good as the original, we laughed quite a bit and really enjoyed this sequel.

'Tad Jones The Lost Explorer And The Secret Of King Midas (2018)' starts off as a bit of an in-joke, with pretty much every slightly ill-translated line and off-kilter piece of bouncy animation serving to further add to the piece's odd, cobbled-together and just-a-bit misinformed charm. That all wears off fairly quickly, though, once the flick gets into its repetitive and pretty boring second act. Here, it constantly aims to remind you that the little bumps you previously thought were quirky fun are actually still culminating to that nagging pain you're starting to feel. It's not a particularly bad feature, however, in fact it's quite entertaining until it starts to run out of steam. The piece is also surprisingly 'edgy' for kids stuff, considering that it certainly skews supremely young, but its strange that its core narrative conceits concern things that will be totally alien to children (love triangles and someone being 'out of your league', to name a couple.) It heavily relies on the fact it is a sequel, too, despite not being marketed as one (at least not in the U.K.), leading to some huge leaps in logic which really do take some suspension of disbelief even within the slapstick world that's set-up. Its inoffensive and sometimes fun fluff, but it does get quite tiring once its charm has worn off. 4/10

Considering the fact that this movie cost only ~9 million euros, Lightbox Animation Studios did a terrific job. Characters are developed with tremendous passion and the charm of Momia could rival even Pixar productions. The story is full of warmth and emotion, while the romance sub-plot has the right balance of superficiality and drama. There is not much depth, but it's expected for an U rated movie. However, while the main characters are animated with love, the environment feels too empty and unpopulated. Even though the car chase scenes take place in the middle of the day, there are barely any visual dynamics in the background, e.g. people. At times, the movement of distant objects/characters looked quite wonky and unrealistic, breaking the immersion of the scenes. Overall, Tad 2 is a decent movie for the younger audience.