Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, Don Novello, James Garner, Leonard Nemoy, Jim Varney; d. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise; C-

Once upon a time there was a magial kingdom called Disney. Disney was a Hollywood movie studio started by an animation and business genius called Walt Disney. His cartoons, which starred characters named Mickey, Donald, Minnie, Donald, and so forth, had a special place in American's hearts, and so did the animated movies that came from his studios. They started with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and grew into a phenomenom. Eventually this magical kindgom was releasing animated films, which they called "Disney Masterpeices," every year. Sometimes they would release two or three animated films each year, but there was always one big one that would come out in the summer. These were the ones that all the kids would see and love. In the beginning of the decade called the ninties, Disney released a string of animated films which were often regarded as their best. There was Aladdin, The LIttle Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. What people loved and remembered the most about those movies was the music. It was a tradition of Disney's to usually have their big summer films be musicals. As the decade they called the ninties waned, people began to tire of Disney's, what they called, "formula."

One day, a movie mogiul by the name of Stephen Speilberg got together with two of his friends and created a studio called Dreamworks SKG. It was big. The movie studio started slow, but eventually it began having what they called "hits," or movies that were popular and made a lot of money. These hits included American Beauty, which one a lot of awards called Oscars, and Gladiator, which also won a lot of Oscars, not to mention the hearts of a lot of American women who loved Russel Crowe (one of them was named Meg Ryan). This studio also started releasing a lot of animated films that gave what they called "competition" to Disney. They released The Road to El Dorado, which was really popular, and also had music by Hans Zimmer, who wrote the music for that movie staring the man who won American woman's hearts, and Elton John. Together they both had written the songs for The Lion King. Meanwhile, the kingdom of Disney was releasing unpopular films like Hercules, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dam, and Tarzan. Many of its viewes, most of them older viewers, didn't like them. Disney, though, still had a few popular films, or as they called it, "tricks up their sleeves." Disney started working with another what they called "company" named Pixar which made cartoons with computers. Together with Pixar Disney released popular computer cartoons called Toy Story and its sequel, and another movie called A Bug's Life. They also released Dinosaur. Poeple did not like Dinosaur.

In the year 2001, which was the title of a really popular movie directed by a man named Stanley Kubric, Dreamworks released a computer animated film through their company, Dreamworks SKG PDI. It was called Shrek. Shrek was released a week before a non-animated Disney film by the name of Pearl Harbor came out. Pearl Harbor was not a musical (even thought it should have been). Pearl Harbor is making less money than Shrek, which is a suprise hit, and makes fun of Disney. Everybody loves Shrek.

The kingdom of Disney was under attack. They weren't popular anymore. The people whom they wanted to please were laughing at them with a green ogre named Shrek. So they made Atlantis: The Lost Empire. This was supposed to be a departure from tradition for Disney. It was a departure from tradition. The kingdom of Disney, though, forgot that breaking from tradition didn't automatically make a movie good.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire is about a journey to find the lost empire of Atlantis. Atlantis was supposedly an ultra civilized, ultra advanced culture that existed centuries ago, but was submerged under water, lost forever. In this movie, a scrawny, geeky lingust named Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) wants to find the lost city of Atlantis. No one in the Smithsonian will listen to him, but a weird old man who knew his grandfather hires Milo for his language skills to join an underwater expidition to Iceland to find Atlantis. Joining Milo are a group of stereoptypical characters. One of them his the Hitchcock blonde/femme fatale from hell, the other is a sassy Latina teenager, the other is a passive Italian explosives expert, the other is a nice black doctor, the other is a dirty French guy who loves dirt, the other is an old hick cook, the other is a chain smoking phone operator, and the other is a "heroic" military-like guy. They go through a lot of obsticales under water and in a volcano, and then they find Atlantis. There awaits a bunch of old Atlantians and a clueless but volumptuous princess named Kida. Of course Milo and Kida fall in love. Then evil stuff happens. Then everything turns out to be OK. The end.

There's a good movie hidden in Atlantis, but just like the city itself, the movie is sumberged under a sea of nonesense brought on by Disney's disparity to still be appealing for kids. As a result, the movie is a muddled, confusing 95 minutes of what could have been a great animated film for teenagers and adults. Atlantis has plenty of action for kids, but much of its action relies on horridly inappropriate violence which results in a sky-high human death rate. Much of the plot and character development of Atlantis is likewise for kids. There simply is none, thanks to, again, Disney's desire to please kids by stuffing what should have been a two-hour plus animated epic into one hour and thirty-five minutes to satisfy kids' short attention span. Things happen too suddenly and with little explanation. Characters are horribly underwritten. The script automatically expects you to care for them by inserting a throw-away scene where all the characters tell each other their past, yet all this scene is good for is to provide Milo with some "cold" insults to give to the characters later on in the film. As it is with the action, characters change with little explanation. They switch from good to bad, and back to good again, with no apparent reason besides the fact that it's the twist and it's the right thing to do. The film expects the audience to know why the characters do it based on old formulas. Milo and Kida fall in love because they're the two main characters. Certain characters turn out to be bad because they want money, not glory. Certain characters turn good again because Milo whined, and it's also the good thing to do. Unfortunatley, those explainations fail to insert reason into the characters' sudden changes and actions, and makes it hard to muster up any sense of caring for these characters.

The movie all around was a dissapointment. It promised to be a visual stunner, but turned out to be a poorly animated film with too wide a screen. It promised to be a bit darker than most Disney films, and turned out to be a disgustingly violent and cynical film that clahsed with its own themes of peace, happiness, beauty, and above all things luv. In fact, it promised to be a good film, and turned out to be a fair dud. Wait for this to come out on tape, and if you're really picky about your kids and voilence, definatley don't let them see this film.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001