The sad thing about the Post-Renaissance Era of Disney Animation is that many of the films from this period were critical or commercial disappointments, not outright bad, but just forgotten in the passage of time because they weren’t as beloved or memorable as the Renaissance Era films. However, it’s undeniable that these films arguably had the most narratively original films of any Disney Classics era.
Atlantis is one such film, and whilst I am no fan of the Disney ‘Live Action Remake’ phase they’re going through, Atlantis is a prime candidate for a film that I feel would translate incredibly well to a live action format, and arguably fare better with audiences and critics than this animation did.
Eight thousand years ago the once great city of Atlantis falls into the ocean as Princess Kida (Cree Summer) watches her mother sacrifice herself to save the Atlantan people.
In 1914 Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), a linguist and cartographer at the Smithsonian, is mocked by his academic peers in his belief that he can find the fabled lost city of Atlantis. Approached by Preston Whitmore (John Mahoney), a former associate of his grandfather’s, Milo is offered the chance to lead a fully funded expedition to locate Atlantis and bring back a mysterious power source that could hold untold advancements for human civilisation.
With his crew consisting of Commander Rourke (James Garner), Lieutenant Helga (Claudia Christiansen), demolitions expert Vinny (Don Novello), Dr. Sweet (Phil Morris), mechanic Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors), Cookie (Jim Varney) the cook, Wilhelmina (Florence Stanley) the radio operator, and ‘The Mole’ (Corey Burton), Milo embarks on a journey that will alter the course of human history.
Atlantis is one such film, and whilst I am no fan of the Disney ‘Live Action Remake’ phase they’re going through, Atlantis is a prime candidate for a film that I feel would translate incredibly well to a live action format, and arguably fare better with audiences and critics than this animation did.
Eight thousand years ago the once great city of Atlantis falls into the ocean as Princess Kida (Cree Summer) watches her mother sacrifice herself to save the Atlantan people.
In 1914 Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), a linguist and cartographer at the Smithsonian, is mocked by his academic peers in his belief that he can find the fabled lost city of Atlantis. Approached by Preston Whitmore (John Mahoney), a former associate of his grandfather’s, Milo is offered the chance to lead a fully funded expedition to locate Atlantis and bring back a mysterious power source that could hold untold advancements for human civilisation.
With his crew consisting of Commander Rourke (James Garner), Lieutenant Helga (Claudia Christiansen), demolitions expert Vinny (Don Novello), Dr. Sweet (Phil Morris), mechanic Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors), Cookie (Jim Varney) the cook, Wilhelmina (Florence Stanley) the radio operator, and ‘The Mole’ (Corey Burton), Milo embarks on a journey that will alter the course of human history.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is an awesome adventure movie that presents such a deep and intricate lore for the story to build upon. The real charm of Atlantis is unravelling the mystery with Milo and learning about the once great civilisation of Atlantis. There’s so much to see and listen to that gives you such a rich history of the world that it is impossible not to enjoy the world Atlantis creates. However, what lets the film down is the weak cast of characters. There are too many of them and none of them are given an adequate amount of screen time. At just shy of an hour and forty minutes, Atlantis is one of the longer Disney Animated Classics, but it’s still trying to do too much with the runtime it has, and as such it crams as much as it can into an extremely tight package. Each character is little more than a stereotype and has no opportunity to be anything but that. They’re all good characters and had they been given more room to grow, particularly characters like Rourke, Helga, Sweet, and Audrey, then Atlantis’ cast could have been as strong as its world.
The film also takes its time to get to Atlantis. In fact, for a long time, it feels like the film is just going to be about the journey to this mystical land as the road to Atlantis is treacherous and stuffed with interesting information. But a little over halfway the crew arrive at their destination and you’re quickly swept up in this new story about the Atlantan’s needing Milo’s help to find a powerful power-source that will restore Atlantis and its people to their former glory. Their power source and Milo’s artefact are one and the same so it’s not a huge diversion, but all those crew characters get side-lined for a significant portion of the film in favour of introducing Kida, her father, and to dump a ton of exposition onto the audience about the history of Atlantis. It’s all good stuff, but it’s very disjointed from the first half of the film.
This makes it feel like the story should have been broken up into multiple films or even a TV series because there’s just so much information here. At the very least the film should have been around twenty minutes longer to allow for character development and more natural plot progression, but this is an animated film primarily aimed at children so even an hour and forty minutes is on the long side. It’s why I feel that Atlantis could do well with the Live Action Remake treatment. Pull a Pirates of the Caribbean on it, give it a two-and-a-half-hour runtime and bam you’ve got the first instalment to Disney’s next blockbuster adventure franchise.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how good the material is in Atlantis, it’s far too crowded and corners definitely get cut to make it fit inside such a tiny package.
The film also takes its time to get to Atlantis. In fact, for a long time, it feels like the film is just going to be about the journey to this mystical land as the road to Atlantis is treacherous and stuffed with interesting information. But a little over halfway the crew arrive at their destination and you’re quickly swept up in this new story about the Atlantan’s needing Milo’s help to find a powerful power-source that will restore Atlantis and its people to their former glory. Their power source and Milo’s artefact are one and the same so it’s not a huge diversion, but all those crew characters get side-lined for a significant portion of the film in favour of introducing Kida, her father, and to dump a ton of exposition onto the audience about the history of Atlantis. It’s all good stuff, but it’s very disjointed from the first half of the film.
This makes it feel like the story should have been broken up into multiple films or even a TV series because there’s just so much information here. At the very least the film should have been around twenty minutes longer to allow for character development and more natural plot progression, but this is an animated film primarily aimed at children so even an hour and forty minutes is on the long side. It’s why I feel that Atlantis could do well with the Live Action Remake treatment. Pull a Pirates of the Caribbean on it, give it a two-and-a-half-hour runtime and bam you’ve got the first instalment to Disney’s next blockbuster adventure franchise.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how good the material is in Atlantis, it’s far too crowded and corners definitely get cut to make it fit inside such a tiny package.
But the film looks and sounds incredible. A massively underrated soundtrack accompanies Atlantis and I feel that it doesn't get the recognition it deserves simply because it’s not a musical; it has such powerful songs and sounds totally unique. Add this to the angular, yet minimalistic animation style reminiscent of Disney’s old Xerography style, combined with more advanced 3D CG animation than Disney has ever attempted in a traditional animation before, and you get a simply gorgeous film that is visually unique and pushes the boundaries for what was thought possible with 2D animation.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a flawed masterpiece. Given the opportunity to expand its premise then it could be one of Disney’s greatest adventure film series ever made, but as it stands it is simply an extremely ambitious film that flew a little too close to the sun. Whilst Atlantis may sport some weak characters and rushed plot, the world and history is enough to captivate anyone and warrant multiple viewings to find all the interesting hidden details.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a flawed masterpiece. Given the opportunity to expand its premise then it could be one of Disney’s greatest adventure film series ever made, but as it stands it is simply an extremely ambitious film that flew a little too close to the sun. Whilst Atlantis may sport some weak characters and rushed plot, the world and history is enough to captivate anyone and warrant multiple viewings to find all the interesting hidden details.