Tad, the Lost Explorer (Spanish: Las aventuras de Tadeo Jones, lit. ’The Adventures of Tadeo Jones’) is a 2012 Spanish animated adventure comedy film directed by Enrique Gato. The film is a spinoff of Gato’s 2004 short film, Tadeo Jones and its sequel Tadeo Jones and the Basement of Doom. While technically based on the shorts, the film was mainly adapted from the Spanish graphic novel Tadeo and the Secret of the Toactlum, illustrated and co-written by Juan López Fernández (Jan) and written by Javier Barreira, Gorka Magallón, and Gato. The film was adapted and written by Barreira, Magallón, Ignacio del Moral, Jordi Gasull, and Neil Landau. The film’s music was composed by Zacarías M. de la Riva. The English cast features the voices of Kerry Shale, Ariel Winter, Bruce Mackinnon, Mac McDonald, Liza Ross, Cheech Marin, and Adam James. The film was produced by Telecinco Cinema, El Toro Picture, Lightbox Entertainment, Ikiru Films, Telefónica Producciones, and Media Networks, with the participation of AXN, Canal Plus, and TVC.

The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on 5 June 2012 and was theatrically released on 31 August 2012 in Spain by Paramount Pictures. Spanish critics gave it positive reviews, but it was not well received in North America. It earned €45 million on an €8 million budget, making it a box-office hit.

It was nominated for five Goya Awards at the 27th Goya Awards, winning three: Best Animated Film, New Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

It became the first feature film in the Tad Stones film series when a sequel film, titled Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas, was released in 2017; which was followed by Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet, released in August 2022.

Tadeo Jones (Tad Stones in the English version and voiced by Kerry Shale) is a bricklayer who lives in Chicago, working on the construction of the city’s subway. Ever since he was five years old, he has dreamed of being a professional archaeologist. After being fired from his job as a bricklayer for daydreaming and for his dog urinating on the construction foreman, Tad visits his friend Professor Humbert (voiced by Mac McDonald), asking for the professor’s help in investigating an apparently vintage bottle of Coca-Cola Tad found on the construction site. The professor receives a letter from his friend Professor Lavrof summoning him to Peru to re-unite his half of a stone “key” that will unlock the legendary Incan city of Paititi. Arriving at the airport, Professor Humbert suffers an accident after taking the wrong pills and is taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, a member of the nefarious firm Odysseus Inc. is spying on them and sends the photo to the other members who are in the Sechura Desert.

Tad takes the professor’s place and, along with his dog Jeff, travels from Chicago to Cusco, Peru. in the Cusco airport Tad meets Freddy (voiced by Cheech Marin), a local hustler. Tad is kidnapped by men from Odysseus, who threaten him to give them the stone key, but Tad is saved by Freddy and Sara (voiced by Ariel Winter), Professor Lavrof’s daughter, whom Tad falls in love with. After joining the two halves of the key, the group travels to Machu Picchu to meet up with Lavrof (also voiced by McDonald). Odysseus Inc., led by the evil Kopponen, (also voiced by Kerry Shale) again tries to steal the key, but Tad and Sara escape their clutches.

Arriving in Machu Picchu, they discover that Professor Lavrof was kidnapped by Odysseus. After a series of adventures, they find Lavrof and Max Mordon (voiced by Adam James), a famous archaeologist Tad idolizes and Sara’s fiancé. After cracking the code of a wall map. Kopponen searches the desert with Lavrof and Mordon to find the treasure of the Incas. But Tad and Sara have the real map, and they depart for the jungle. Kopponen discovers them and finds the underground temple.

After more adventures, it is revealed that Max is in league with Odysseus. After a booby-trapped room that wipes out Kopponen and the rest of his henchmen in Odysseus Inc., Max sneaks into a room in the temple and tries to steal the Incan gold, thinking it will grant him eternal life. After deceiving a mummy and a golem, Max smashes the glass that protects the Indian gold and thus achieves eternal life — but only as an un-dead mummy, and the condition is irreversible. Max is then imprisoned by the mummy inhabitants in Paititi’s darkest dungeon, the chief mummy releases Tad, Sara and the Professor on the condition that they will not reveal anything they know about the city or the treasure. Upon returning to the surface, they convince Freddy that the treasure of the Incas was only a legend and does not really exist. Tad and Sara confess their feelings for each other, along with the passionate kiss, their romance blossoms.

The film ends with Tad, Sara, Lavrof, Jeff, and Belzoni escaping in one of the Odysseus vehicles.

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