41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

After Dinosaur and The Emperor’s New Groove, Disney continued their trend of releasing films that seemed to deliberately shake-up the status quo that had been established during the Renaissance with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, an action-adventure that supposedly carried the motto “Less singing, more explosions.” Unfortunately, Disney’s attempts to diverge from their traditional formula were once again met with apathy and disinterest; Atlantis did very poorly at the box-office and was blasted by critics, for lacking heart, depth and not feeling like a Disney film. While Atlantis definitely has its problems, I think it got a much worse rap than it deserves and instead of judging it on what they expected a Disney movie to be, people should have been more receptive to the different kinds of things this film had to offer.

Visually, the film stands out from all other Disney movies, as its art style – inspired by that of comic book artist Mike Mignola – is pretty much the exact opposite of Disney’s ordinary one. We’ve seen sharper, more stylised character designs before in films like Sleeping Beauty, Pocahontas, The Emperor’s New Groove and most films made using the xerographic process of animation, but never this extreme; this heavily stylised approach adds to the film’s atmosphere and sense of identity and, while I understand why some would find it distracting in a Disney movie, I personally think it works. The animation itself is incredibly smooth, in some cases, unbelievably so; the character of Milo moves so intricately and so realistically it almost looks like rotoscoping has been utilised, it’s certainly impressive. The film also makes heavy use of computer animation, but it mostly blends in comfortably with the traditional animation and doesn’t feel dated; scenes like the battle with the leviathan still look just as good today. The backgrounds are wide and large, with a good sense of scope and size on a similar level to those in The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Atlantis is one of the few Disney movies to be shot in anamorphic widescreen, which compliments these backgrounds and adds to this sense of size and theatricality. The overall design of the movie has this kind of “old-timey idea of the future” to it which is obviously inspired by the works of Jules Verne; it also deliberately encapsulates aspects of old adventure serials in the same way that something like Indiana Jones or Star Wars did. This percolates through every aspect of the picture, even down to the scene transitions, which utilise wipes in the same way George Lucas did in Star Wars – to hark back to that classic, “Golden Age of Hollywood” style of adventure movie; in my opinion, they more than succeed in their attempts.

Let’s show this prehistoric fish how we do things down town

The film is an old-fashioned, pulpy adventure in the vein of something like Doc Savage, incorporating a deliberately nostalgic attitude towards adventure, exploration, science and exoticism; in the same way that the aforementioned Star Wars and Indiana Jones are modern reconstructions of old sci-fi and adventure serials, respectively, Atlantis can be thought of as a modern reconstruction of old pulp fiction adventures and speculative fiction novels from the turn of the century. The inspiration from Jules Verne has been previously noted and Atlantis specifically draws very heavily from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (itself made into a Disney movie back in 1954), while incorporating aspects from similar stories and adding the traditional Disney touch. The story then is a very familiar one, an intelligent but inexperienced young man sets out on a great adventure into the unknown, in search of a brave new world and finds an ancient, lost civilisation; the film knows its plot is old hat, but rather than be cynical or dismissive about it, it takes all these old clichés and takes them as far as they can go, as if directly challenging the audience: “they might be clichés, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be fun!” The film then plays out with a very traditional three act structure of introducing the heroes, charting their journey to Atlantis and then finally, their experiences in Atlantis, with one last battle in the end; it’s a very typical point A to point B adventure, but the animation and characters are lively enough for it to get away with not being much else. Ultimately, I think the film could have benefited from a couple more creative set-pieces, but on the whole, the action is excellent.

The film features a very large cast, comprised of a number of quirky characters which pay homage to various, classic film archetypes. Our hero, Milo, is the wide-eyed young man who yearns for adventure and in his journeys, finds his strength; he fits some of the typical Disney hero traits as a nice, but ordinary guy who starts out as an outcast before finding where he belongs and learning to be a leader, but his nerdy awkwardness and subtle wit give him enough of a personality to prevent him from just being another dull lead. Kida is the exotic, native girl who teaches the male hero about her culture and falls for him along the way; she’s basically a better version of Pocahontas and though she doesn’t get a lot of development, she’s still fun. Her and Milo’s relationship isn't really developed very much either, but to be fair it’s not like the film ends with them getting together with a big, romantic kiss, it’s just kind of implied that a relationship is probably going to develop naturally between them, once they’ve had more time to get to know one another. Vinny is a weirdly unique character, a demolitions expert obsessed with explosions, yet instead of being trigger happy and psychotic like you might expect, he’s actually calm, deadpan and mostly emotionless; this, combined with his rambling, off-the-cuff delivery, makes him really funny and fresh. Mole is the wacky weirdo who nobody else really likes, he’s closest to “The Hooter” the movie has, but isn’t nearly annoying or unhelpful enough to be one; though he is deliberately obnoxious, the fact that the other characters recognise this means that he does his job without grating on the audience’s nerves. Sweet is the nice guy, friendly, optimistic and charming; he’s so insanely positive it’s actually kind of funny. Audrey is the tomboy, a scrappy, tough mechanic with a sharp tongue; she’s a lot of fun and in my opinion should’ve had a much larger role, as honestly she has much more chemistry with Milo than Kida does. Ms. Packard is the cranky old lady, constantly making sarcastic quips and pessimistic remarks; she reminds me of Lunch Lady Doris from The Simpsons and has some of the best lines of the movie. Cookie is the dopey old redneck, completely oblivious to how out of touch he is and how much people hate his cooking; he’s a bit out of focus compared to some of the others, but has some funny moments.

The crew

The villain, Rourke, is the greedy profiteer who tries to steal from the foreign land for his own monetary gain; he’s MacLeach, he’s Ratcliffe, he’s Clayton, this is the only one of the character stereotypes in the movie that feels too tired to re-use, even deliberately. Rourke has some charisma and is well acted enough to be more interesting than Ratcliffe, at least, but as I’ve said before, a greedy mercenary whose only motivation is to make money just doesn't make for a very interesting villain; I suppose it does match the kind of stories the movie is paying homage to, but I don’t know, I feel like they could’ve come up with something better than this. Rourke’s sidekick, Helga, is a lot more interesting, she’s the classic femme fatale – seductive, deadly and morally ambiguous; she is a lot of fun and it’s a shame that she kind of takes a back seat to Rourke for most of the movie, as she probably would have worked better as the main villain. These characters all have well-defined and distinct personalities and back stories and play off one another really well; the cast could perhaps stand to be just a little smaller, but that’s only because most of these characters are so fun and interesting that you want to see more of them and it’s a shame that there’s so many that they all have to share screen time, as the film just isn’t long enough to give all these colourful characters enough time in the spotlight. Individually, they need more attention, but as a whole, these characters are the film’s greatest strength. 

I understand why Atlantis isn’t for everyone; in many ways, it doesn’t feel like a Disney movie at all, save for a few generic scenes towards the end. Nevertheless, I think the film was judged unfairly against the films of the Renaissance, when it was deliberately trying to be something different; I admit it has its issues, as the characters all fight for attention, meaning that only a couple really get the time they deserve and the story kind of runs out of steam towards the end, with a rather predictable and uninventive climax. Despite this, Atlantis does do a lot of things right – it succeeds comfortably as an homage to pulp fiction novels and an outlandish and idealistic attitude towards adventure and discovery and though there are too many characters, they’re almost all interesting and as a group their interactions are believable and entertaining. It is flawed, but of all the Disney movies, I think Atlantis: The Lost Empire is one of the most genuinely underrated; anyone who wrote this movie off back in the day should give it another look now and see how they feel, they might just be pleasantly surprised.


Other Thoughts

• Just on a side-note, the sound design is excellent; a small thing, perhaps, but I was really impressed by just how thorough they were with all the little sounds and it adds so much to the atmosphere.

7/10

Next Week: Lilo and Stitch!

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