Review: Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Set in the early 1900’s, Milo (voiced by Michael J. Fox) is a linguistics expert obsessed with the lost underwater city of Atlantis, but who works as a humble boiler room attendant at a local museum where everyone dismisses his theories about where Atlantis is to be found. One day, however, he is summoned to a meeting with a millionaire (voiced by the inimitable John Mahoney from TV’s “Frasier”), who knew Milo’s deceased grandfather (who was similarly obsessed with Atlantis) and is more than willing to fund an expedition to find Atlantis, using a custom-made submarine. Milo (the only person who knows how to speak the supposedly dead Atlantean language) goes along on the mission headed by gruff Commander Rourke (voiced by James Garner), and his group of roughneck military-types (voiced by the likes of Don Novello, Phil Morris, Claudia Christian, and the late Jim Varney, who died just prior to the film’s completion). What they discover is best left to the viewer to find out for themselves (Psst. It has something to do with this place called Atlantis, but you didn’t hear that from me, OK? Cool.)

 

More inspired by live-action Disney adventures like “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” than the Disney animated films of the 90s-00s era that it sprang from, this is a straight-up adventure mostly for boys, but done in animated form. Directed and co-scripted by Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise (“Beauty and the Beast”, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”), this 2001 film isn’t an undiscovered classic, but it’s a lot better than the fate it received at the time, which is a shame. It’s classical adventure storytelling without pandering to the young ‘uns by giving it a spacey/sci-fi twist, ala the terrible “Treasure Planet”. The story of Atlantis is already fantastical enough to begin with that it doesn’t need ‘jazzing’ up anyway. Having said that, from a technological POV, it probably wasn’t wise of Disney to still be doing 2D animation by this point, which might’ve sealed the film’s fate at the box-office. However, I certainly applaud them for at least branching out from the ‘Pop songs and fuzzy anthropomorphic comic relief’ standard they’d been sticking too for a bit too long (“The Little Mermaid”, “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”, “Mulan”, etc.) There’s really no songs here, and although the voices of Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello), Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox), Ernest P. Worrell (the late Jim Varney), Martin Crane (John Mahoney), and Jackie Chiles (Phil Morris) fill the cast, it’s not a comedy at all.

 

To be honest, I think if the film did adopt a more Pixar-esque look, it probably wouldn’t have disappointed at the box-office. You can tell that the film isn’t just using the old cell animation deal at this point but computer animation, and it’s a step up from the previous “Pocahontas” which only used a little bit of computer animation. I’m not sure of the percentages, but I assume this film used more computer animation than “Pocahontas”, and it’s also a lot more seamlessly done than the terrible “Treasure Planet”, mostly because the character animation and the backgrounds work together, instead of standing out like a sore thumb. However, we’re not talking the 3D computer animation of a “Toy Story” or 2001’s “Shrek” or “Monster’s, Inc.” either. For some reason, Disney were still resistant to that sort of thing at this point, and as I said earlier, I think it’s to their detriment, not perhaps artistically, but certainly commercially here. Some of the characters have an angular look which really isn’t my bag normally (It’s partly why I hated “Pocahontas” and it didn’t work in “Hercules”, either), but actually looks quite refined here, and it’s not all of the characters at least. I think detail is the key here, as the characters features have a lot more detail to them than in “Hercules”, “Pocahontas”, or even “Tarzan” (which I rather liked). If anything, the animation style is closer to anime (or comic books/graphic novels) than Disney animation, and it works in this case. It’s a boys’ own adventure flick, so adopting an animation style from anime or from the pages of a comic book actually makes sense (“Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola apparently added his 2c worth from a design/sketching POV for the initial stages). Also worth praising is the muscular music score by James Newton Howard (“The Fugitive”, “Signs”), which is terrific and definitely one of the best of the period.

 

The voice cast is mostly comprised of TV veterans, and although few stand out, none are sub-par. Unlike many, I actually think if you’re gonna cast recognisable names, I really wanna know it’s them, so I think casting B+ actors from mostly TV is a good compromise in that sense. Michael J. Fox is a perfectly affable lead, stoic, hardened Claudia Christian is well-used, Leonard Nimoy’s voice is never a bad thing to hear (voicing a character unspoiled by me), and James Garner towers above all, stealing the entire film as the main villain. Who knew Garner could be so good at being so bad? If the film has a flaw, it’s that aside from those voiced by Fox and Garner, none of the characters are particularly memorable. So as much as I actually liked watching the film, I highly doubt I’ll remember a whole lot about it from a character point of view in the years to come.

 

A straight-up action-adventure that is unlike any other Disney animated film, recalling more their live-action output. A well-chosen cast of mostly TV actors providing solid, if mostly unremarkable voice work, and a terrific music score also help. This is much better than expected, give it a look if you avoided/missed it on original release like I did. It’s worth it. The screenplay is by Tab Murphy (Disney’s “Tarzan” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”), from a story by the directors, along with Murphy, Joss Whedon (TV’s “Buffy”), and Bryce & Jackie Zabel (the former having co-scripted the sequel “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation”, of all things).

 

Rating: B-