Atlantis: The Lost Empire


Starring Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, James Garner, Don Novello, Leonard Nimoy, Jim Varney, Phil Morris, John Mahoney. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise.

It's 1914, and Milo Hatch (Fox) is an aspiring archeologist and linquist banished to the university basement. His professors avoid him because he keeps talking about finding the lost continent of Atlantis. He has been interested in finding it because his grandfather who raised him, spent his life trying to discover its whereabouts without success. Milo is rejected once again by his superiors, but that night he is whisked away to the estate of filthy rich tycoon Mr. Whitmore. It turns out Whitmore was a friend of Milo's grandfather and was in possession of an ancient journal from Atlantis that describes it's whereabouts and the secret to its reputed power source. Whitmore has a state-of-the-art submarine and has recruited a crack team of soldiers and scientists led by an old friend of Whitmore's Commander Rourke (Garner), plus a rag-tag bunch of specialists designed for a successful expedition.

The expedition encounters a huge mechanical lobster that destroys the main submarine and takes with it over a hundred of their crew. But the main group survives and finds the air pocket that leads to the sunken city. After a lot of hard work they discover the old city, and to their surprise, they discover there are inhabitants. Princess Kida (Summer) welcomes the newcomers, hoping they will help save their dying culture, but her father the King (Nimoy) does not trust the outsiders. Everything is fine as the expedition surveys the wonders of this underground, ancient civilization, until things start to go wrong.

After seeing Shrek and the new computer animation, old-style hand-drawn cartoons begin to look a little flat, but very soon I stopped noticing. The opening scene showing the destruction of Atlantis is exciting and entertaining. Atlantis' animation features very high quality character movement, beautiful colours and some very spectacular scenery and action. Atlantis is an old-style adventure movie designed for the little boy in (some of) us. It is not exactly unique - it is reminiscent of 20000 Leagues Under The Sea underwater submarine, Lost Horizon's search for a mythical paradise and even Planet Of The Apes in its adventure through man's history and various ruins. The story moves along briskly, with a few, sometimes unexpected twists along the way.

The voices are enthusiastically rendered, with Garner seeming to relish the chance to play the villain. The film is often quite funny, with some of the best lines uttered by Don Novello as a crazy Turkish prison escapee who loves to use dynamite, and Jim Varney's stereotypical cook from the old west who loves to cook with the four major food groups - beans, bacon, lard and whiskey. Atlantis is not in the same league as Beauty And The Beast, and The Lion King, but I had fun the whole time, with few lulls and some surprisingly breathtaking and imaginative animation and storyline. The kids in the audience, both boys and girls, seemed to love the movie and openly gasped in several scenes, so it is a movie young and old can enjoy.




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