Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Tad: The Lost Explorer 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

A sweet surprise from Spain.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 28, 2013

One of the great pleasures of being a reviewer is getting introduced to fare which is lesser known and in some cases probably generally unheard of. Over the past several years, I’ve been fortunate to review a rather large slate of international animated releases. Some of these bear legendary imprimaturs, like Studio Ghibli’s From Up On Poppy Hill, but my hunch is that only a very few readers knew of a bunch of French releases (The Rabbi's Cat, Tales of the Night, A Monster in Paris 3D, The Painting) before our coverage went live. Spain’s Chico & Rita at least had the benefit of an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature to help it achieve some market renown, but its countryman Tad: The Lost Explorer so far “only” has a handful of Goya and Gaudi Awards to its credit, which may or may not be enough for it to gain any traction on this side of the pond. (It is worth noting that the film won Best Animated Feature from both the Goyas, a regional award, as well as the Gaudis, Spain’s equivalent to our Oscars.) That’s too bad, really, for Tad: The Lost Explorer is in many ways a very “American” feeling outing (probably by design), filled with some memorable animal (and/or avian) sidekicks and a rollicking adventure story that owes more than a bit to Raiders of the Lost Ark (currently available on Blu-ray as part of Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures). The film has been dubbed into English for this new Blu-ray release, and while that creates some occasionally unintended humor (the lead character’s surname is changed from Jones to Stones, evidently to keep the mouth movements in line with the phonemes while perhaps avoiding a lawsuit), this is an effort which actually makes the transition to a new language (and/or culture) quite easily. Some Western viewers are occasionally befuddled by the European or Asian ethos which permeates animated offerings from those regions, but in this case, Tad: The Lost Explorer is not lost in translation.

We meet Tad Stones as a little boy digging in his front yard on a supposed “archaeological expedition” that actually manages to uncover one of his late father’s lucky cufflinks. Tad is obviously a sweet, if somewhat dunderheaded, kid, being raised by his kindly grandmother. He’s like many kids, trying to overcome the fears of childhood, which in his case includes a rather large and unsightly billboard right outside his bedroom window which features a rather nasty looking mummy.

The film then segues to Tad as an adult (voiced by Kerry Shales), working on a construction crew but still not giving up his dream of being an archaeologist. When the building site uncovers what looks suspiciously like a Coke bottle, Tad is convinced he’s found something valuable and runs off to his mentor, Professor Humbert. The good professor dashes Tad’s hopes—kindly, of course—placing the obviously worthless bottle on a shelf next to many other items which Tad has evidently previously brought in for his professional perusal. But while Tad is there, Humbert receives an important message from a colleague of his named Professor Lavrof, who claims to have found the mythical city of Paititi in Peru. It just so happens that Humbert has half of an ancient stone tablet that is supposedly part of a “key” to unlocking a mystery there.

Lavrof wants Humbert to come to Peru, and Tad is only too happy to accompany the professor to the airport, but through a series of unlikely but perhaps predictable plot machinations, the professor is “predisposed” and Tad takes his place on the flight to South America (so much for TSA checking passports and tickets to make sure they match). In the meantime, we’re aware that a bunch of no-goodniks working for a shadowy organization called Odysseus want to get that tablet for themselves. This includes a kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque bad guy named Kopponen, who comes equipped with a bionic arm and hand which is able to convert at a moment’s notice into all sorts of weaponry that might be best described by that infamous tag line of “it slices, it dices” for the Veg-o-Matic from days of yore.

Once Tad arrives in Peru, he’s met by a crazy local guide named Freddy (Cheech Marin, top billed on the cover, though it's really a supporting role) and, after a brief run-in with Kopponen and his henchmen, Professor Lavrof’s lovely daughter, Sara (Ariel Winter of Modern Family fame). Sara seems to have some of the brains that Tad may be lacking, and she figures out that Kopponen is after the stone tablet that Tad has in his possession. The plot soon thickens when a nutty parrot named Belzonie arrives to present Sara with a top secret package from her father, which includes the other half of the tablet. Unfortunately, the parrot (who is mute, but who is a great mime and also comes equipped with a little set of signs which provide a number of nice gags along the way) is able to communicate—if only barely—that the professor has been kidnapped and is being held hostage. And so Sara, Tad and the omnipresent Freddy (along with Belzonie and Tad's dog, Jeff) head off in search of Sara’s father and, of course, the Lost City of Paititi.

Soon enough the trio is beset upon yet again by the nefarious Kopponen, but with the help of scrappy parrot Belzonie are able to keep the tablet out of his hands (or hand and mechanical counterpart, as it were). They then set off on some llamas (hey, this is Peru after all) and soon enough stumble upon what may be the remnants of some lost city, if not Paititi itself. Here the plot takes a couple of left turns, including the introduction of Max Mordon, a world famous archaeologist who is Tad’s idol and Sara’s boyfriend, as well as Professor Lavrof itself. While there’s nothing too surprising here—older viewers especially will be able to spot a supposed “twist” a mile or more off—the film moves along briskly as some quick thinking on the Professor’s part allows Max and Sara to try to find the real Paititi and use their stone key to solve an age old mystery.

Tad: The Lost Explorer builds to an appropriately manic climax, with one character revealing true colors and going after a priceless relic and then, in one of the funnier sequences in the film, Tad, courtesy of a giant stone monolith which the villain controls like a kind of ancient mecha. There’s also a not very scary mummy in the mix, just so Tad can confront his childhood fears and finally triumph over evil, both real and imagined.

Tad: The Lost Explorer 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tad: The Lost Explorer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Gaiam Vivendi with AVC (2D) and MVC (3D) encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1. While this may not have quite the sophistication of the best Pixar outings, this CGI animated film often looks spectacular in high definition, with fantastic fine detail in both characters and backgrounds. Tad looks a bit like a character out of a Nick Park film, but the rest of the humans sport a variety of aesthetics and feature nicely rendered expressions and clothing. The backgrounds are quite nicely done as well, including an ancient pyramid city and then, in the film's final third or so, the cavernous interior of a hidden series of Incan caves. There's one interesting sequence toward the first of the film where Professor Humbert relates the story of Paititi where the film goes into an aesthetic that is rather reminiscent of Disney's The Emperor's New Groove.

The 3D rendering here is very well done, offering near consistent visual immersion which includes a nice little helicopter trek through huge canyons in the opening sequence to a somewhat more claustrophobic but still deep looking set of caverns in the film's closing sequence. Director Enrique Gato also exploits foreground objects very well in order to give a sense of dimensionality and planes of vision. Sometimes these are quite obvious, like a big stone or bush placed front and center, but at other times they're rather subtle, like in a train station, where he just slightly frames the foreground with a metal trellis gate. Some viewers may experience just minor and transitory crosstalk in a couple of very quick pans where characters are running, but otherwise, this is a really solid and enjoyable 3D experience.

Tad: The Lost Explorer 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tad: The Lost Explorer features a nicely vivid lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which offers great surround activity in both its nice glut of sound effects and its use of source cues (including a song by the ever popular One Direction). Dialogue is cleanly presented and well prioritized, and the entire track offers excellent fidelity and wide dynamic range.

Tad: The Lost Explorer 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Tad: The Lost Explorer 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lot of animated fare from foreign countries can seem odd to American audiences, as they frequently do not employ traditional three act structures and also often have a completely different aesthetic. Tad: The Lost Explorer is actually probably the closest to an American outing from the likes of Disney or Pixar that's come down the pike from a foreign country in some time, and while that actually may seem like a recipe for carbon copy disaster, it actually isn't. This is a brightly written and equally brightly designed family film that should delight younger kids and amuse their parents. While there are no supplements on this Blu-ray, the video and audio are excellent, and this release comes Recommended.