It's a great childhood fantasy: to go on an adventure with your friends, leaving behind parents, school, and all the other trappings of the ordinary, grown-up-controlled world; and especially, to return from the adventure with something that will earn the admiration and acclaim of everyone (both grown-ups and fellow kids). And what could be more exciting than discovering clues to a long-lost treasure trove of stolen gold bullion, and then finding a "time tunnel" back to the Old West town at the very time and place that the robbery occurred? With this as its premise, Durango Kids is a movie that's clearly aimed at kids, encouraging them to identify with the young protagonists of this family adventure.

In a society where kids are more and more confined, shuttled from one supervised activity to another for their own safety (ironically, national crime rates have been declining even while the perception of crime has risen and while kids are given less and less autonomy), it's interesting to note that the idyllic childhood remains one in which the kids have the freedom to just "hang out" with each other, riding their bikes around town, dreaming up crazy plans... not to mention having the self-reliance to actually put some of those plans into action. This aspect of the film reminded me of the hours of fun I had (and still have) reading the stories of The Three Investigators... to which Durango Kids appears to have made a slight homage, in having the kids' "hideout" be in a junkyard-like setting.

But while I liked this slant of the movie, and while there's some charm in the story, it's rather outweighed by cheese, at least for the adult viewer. The adventure plot is fairly straightforward, with a few holes here and there. The child characters have the merit of actually looking and acting the age that the story says they are (middle-school age), but apart from that, they're fairly colorless; we have the generic "leader", the "smart girl," and the "geeky boy," with the fourth member of the group having no particular personality traits other than a tendency to get into arguments (and shoving matches) with the other kids.

This 1999 release makes a distinct effort to be "hip" and up-to-date, both in the kids' interests, their behavior toward each other, and their slangy dialogue. While this may give it a certain extra appeal to younger viewers right now, I'm afraid that it's also going to make Durango Kids age rather poorly. As it is, Durango Kids falls into the category of films that will probably be passably entertaining for the younger set, but that don't offer much substance to keep adult viewers interested.

The DVD

Video

Durango Kids is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which struck me as very suspicious for something that is a feature film rather than a made-for-TV movie. I wasn't able to determine whether or not this is actually the film's correct aspect ratio; there was no statement of "This film has been formatted to fit your screen" before the film, but that doesn't rule out a pan-and-scan treatment. I didn't notice any real evidence of cropping and zooming, apart from a few shots early on, and the correct-looking framing of the credits also suggests that the aspect ratio is correct. I'm leaning toward the idea that this is its correct aspect ratio (possibly it was a straight-to-video release) or alternatively that the DVD transfer is an "open matte" version.

The image quality is quite good overall, with bright, vivid colors, minimal edge enhancement, and a generally clean appearance. I did notice some compression artifacts, but on the whole the transfer looks solid.

Audio

The audio quality on this release is definitely below par. While there's no distortion or noise apparent in the background, the sound clarity is not as good as it should be. The Dolby 2.0 sound is often muffled, making dialogue difficult to understand, and the volume level varies from normal to excessively low.

Extras

No special features are included.

Final thoughts

For parents looking for something reasonably entertaining for the kids to watch on a rainy afternoon, you could do worse than watching Durango Kids, although you could also do better. It's acceptable fare for preteen kids, especially if they're fond of adventure-type stories, and while a purchase isn't recommended, I'll suggest it as a reasonable rental.