She soon gets a chance to prove her mettle when she and three fellow students are abducted by treasure hunters trying to track down Dora’s parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) , who are searching for a lost Incan city of gold named Parapata. The Indiana Jones-style high jinks that ensue don’t quite have the visual verve or breakneck pacing of a “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” or even a “National Treasure,” but they’re invigorated by the film’s cheekiness. Dora has to help a clueless classmate dig a “poo hole” in the jungle. Later, the kids are intoxicated by giant spores and hallucinate that they’ve become animated versions of themselves. There are jokes about neurotoxicity and dysentery. Somehow, it all works.

That’s because the film’s freewheeling, what-if quality never becomes meanspirited or gross. The director James Bobin (who achieved a similarly good-natured silliness with his 2011 reboot of “The Muppets”) has a casual style that serves the material well: Nothing is ever too urgent or too lackadaisical. This is a deceptively tough balancing act. Get too loose and the movie will turn into a bunch of limp comedy sketches; get too realistic, and it will lose any sense of what makes Dora such a beloved and timeless character. Like a child unwittingly navigating a jungle full of booby traps and deadly creatures, the film walks a treacherously fine line without ever seeming to break a sweat.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Rated PG for mild jungle action and a cavalier attitude toward inflammatory bowel diseases. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes.