03. ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE: Milo is a bookworm scientist searching for proof of the lost city of Atlantis, and when he visits an eccentric millionaire, Milo is given the Shepherd’s Journal, a relic book rumored to give the location of Atlantis. So, Milo joins an expedition to travel under the sea and find Atlantis. Unfortunately, the crew find themselves attacked by a giant leviathan and are soon searching the earth’s underground until they finally find the fabled city, still inhabited by the descendents of the original Atlantians. Of course, things aren’t what they seem, and ultimately Milo has to protect his discovery from the leer of treasure hunters. Now, when I first saw this movie, I was blown away. Directed by the guys that directed classics like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, ATLANTIS has that great drive of great drama and comedy they’d previously accomplished, and pretty much creating Disney’s best animated action film. The action pieces of this movie are extremely well-executed (pretty much the Star Wars of animation, at least as Disney’s concerned). The art style was largely a take on comic book artist Mike Magola’s designs (the creater of HELLBOY), and it’s very fun to watch (especially love the sharp angles he gives hair and limbs). The plot itself also echoes the many steampunk genre films, as well as great action/sci-fi ideals like from Jules Verne or HG Wells (much of the movie also reminds me of the scenes from 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA). The ideas behind the Atlantis culture are also fun to watch on repeated viewings (the linguist who created the Klingon language for STAR TREK also invented the Atlantian Language). As for the characters, they’re fun at times (especially the minor characters making up most of the crew), and Michael J. Fox does his usual great drawl and finds great moments to use his vocal comedy (there’s great moments of Milo giving long winded speeches where I just keep laughing). I also applaud Cree Summer (my favorite Rugrat) in her performance of Princess Kida: I love that this was not only a princess character that takes charge, but at times, it’s obvious she’s far more an active ruler than her own father (played by the great Leonard Nimoy). I actually take some raw issue with Disney during the promotion of THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (a pretty good movie of its own right) where they kept prepping the tagline of Tiana being the first “Black Princess”. I always shook my head over things like that because I keep wanting to say, “Oh, so we’re just going to forget this cool Princess from this movie you obviously want to shove under the rug?” When ATLANTIS came out, it was considered a failure with audiences, and I hear plenty of internet bloggers that just hate on this movie so much, which I could never truly understand. The movie itself has only two flaws that really derail it at times. One is with the main villain of Rourke. Not only is this a very basic villain, but for whatever reason, the late James Garner was cast for his voice. I don’t mind Garner’s voice here nor with his performance, but the design of Rourke doesn’t work at all with Garner’s voice and clashes very badly. Another thing is with the script, or more clearly, the pacing of the script. Now, honestly, there are tons of great ideas in this movie, but it seemed the filmmakers were set on a 80-90 minute running time, and I simply wish they had just added on another 20 minutes or so to clearly focus on the idea. Due to the film’s running time, the exposition really feels rushed and cluttered. Still, ATLANTIS felt very much like a turn in the right direction for Disney in attempting something more epic and action-adventure based during this time, but sadly, it seems ATLANTIS will just stand as a misunderstood epic that never saw its full potiental. Even with all that, it’s always a pleasure to watch every time.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 04:01:53 +0000
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