Dora and the Lost City of Gold

As Dora, Moner (Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Instant Family) is the film's ace, selling the character's foibles and strengths and providing plenty of arch laughs from beneath those trademark bangs. The best franchise reinvention since 21 Jump Street.

Moner's layered comedic performance, which at once nods at the "Dora" formula while acknowledging the conceit, is deceptively difficult and nuanced... delightfully dorky, a rare commodity in this day and age of sarcastic, wise-beyond-their-years teens.

A little heavy-handed with its moral messaging, this is nevertheless a self-deprecating and diverse tale of discovery. Michael Peña's take on rave culture alone is worth your money.

An appreciably peppy entertainment.

If it comes up short on the thrills and spills, Moner's hilariously upbeat Dora is downright delightful, especially when forced to school her cooler compadres in the jungle's secrets.

Imparting the air of having been highly sanitised and thoroughly rinsed, this late summer Paramount release is squeaky clean and unhip to an unusual degree, its commercial success resting all but exclusively on a built-in fan base.

The most endearing quality of Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson's script - not counting the fact they didn't try to whitewash their Latina heroine - is the way it permits Dora to remain indefatigably upbeat no matter what the situation.

Even as it strikes a gently irreverent tone, the film also embodies its heroine's positive energy: We understand that the world would be a better place if the rest of us were more like Dora, not the other way around.

Its charming gang of weirdos delivers an old-fashioned, 'Goonies'-style adventure, though the find-the-archaeological-site plot is overly familiar.