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"Atlantis: The Lost Empire", is a good adventure story
that takes place in the early 1900's and revolves around a
bumbling, under appreciated, dorky, linguist named Milo (voiced by
Michael J. Fox).
When Milo was younger, his grandfather (a great explorer) told him
tales about Atlantis and ever since, Milo has always dreamed
of finding the lost city. But instead of being an explorer
like his grandfather, Milo is stuck doing janitorial work in the
basement of a museum. Milo tries to convince the board of
directors at the museum to fund an expedition but
they won't hear of it-- Atlantis is just a silly myth.
After being turned down by the museum board members, Milo is propositioned
by a mysterious blonde ala a classic private detective movie. The woman wants Milo to meet with her employer,
Mr. Whitmore (John Mahoney), who turns out to be very
interested in Atlantis. Whitmore (an adventurer too) was
best friends with Milo's late grandfather and was entrusted with a
gift for Milo from his grandfather. This is not any
old gift though, it's the Shepard's Journal...a book written in
Atlantian that tells how to get to the lost city. Whitmore,
as a favor to Milo's grandfather, fully funds an expedition to
Atlantis and Milo joins the crew as their linguist because
he happens to be the only one that can translate Atlanian.
Thus begins the great adventure....
It's really difficult for me to decide how I feel about this movie
(I'm still not quite sure). The story was great...even the
kids in the theater seemed engrossed as I didn't hear a peep out
of any of them (a rare occurrence). But, this being a Disney
movie, I usually expect the animation to be pretty
decent. The animation for "Atlantis" was definitely sub par. Most of the backgrounds just seemed dull
and washed out....like when watercolors blend together to produce
a brownish grayish blah color. It was very boring to look
at. Even when the story was set in Atlantis I wasn't blown
away...it was supposed to be a spectacular, dazzling city but I wasn't
impressed.
One more animation complaint:
fingernails. I don't know why, but instead of drawing normal
looking fingernails on the characters the animators decided just
to make them little triangles. This would have made sense if
there was a triangular theme throughout the rest of the animation
but, apart from the letter "A" in Atlantian looking like
an upside-down triangle, there was no consistent geometric theme
(that I saw at least).
I was also bothered by the fact that the multicultural crew
chosen for the expedition was stereotypical.
Maybe stereotypical isn't the right word, but they were
definitely cultural caricatures. I think the most offensive was Gaetan "Mole" Moliere's character...the
dirty (literally and metaphorically) Frenchman that nobody really
liked. I can't imagine what our French brethren must think
of how their cultural representative was portrayed! Maybe
I'm being too extreme, maybe the characters are not representative
of anyone....but I just think Disney should be a little more
careful when they play the multicultural card.
Despite my whining about the animation and my problems with the
cultural stereotypes, I really enjoyed this film-- it was a great
adventure story. Unlike most Disney movies, the characters
in "Atlantis" weren't very funny (except for
Don Novello's cartoon counterpart, "Vinny" Santorini) and the cast didn't randomly
break unto song (which can be a good thing). I think that if
this had been a live action film instead of a cartoon I would have
liked it a lot more. I think in this case, the animation
really brought the movie down-- it just wasn't good! Unlike
"Shrek"
with it's eye-popping computer animation, "Atantis", it
seems, opted to pay for a good script while cutting corners in the
animation department.
Recommendation:
"Atlantis" is a PG movie that you really can feel safe
taking your children to. There are a few fight scenes that
are a little scary but it's no more violent than previous Disney
movies. Overall, I enjoyed the film and I think most
non-critical (non-whining) people will too. If you see the
movie don't expect anything like "The Little Mermaid",
this movie is a bit more mature and definitely more drab and
realistic (no dance routines or corny songs).
-- Patsy
( 3 out of 4 pops )
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