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Atlantis: The Lost Empire

2001, Movie, PG, 95 mins

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Review

ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE
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Animated steampunk spectacle with an engagingly original conception of the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Washington, D.C., 1914. Linguist and amateur scientist Milo Thatch (voice of Michael J. Fox) has devoted himself to his beloved late grandfather's quest for the underwater city. The museum establishment pooh-poohs his theories, but crackpot jillionaire Preston B. Whitmore (John Mahoney) has a Jules Verne-ian submarine, a ready crew and a long-lost ancient text that may point the way. An ecstatic Milo, the only person capable of translating the ancient glyphs, is pressed into service. Things don't go so swimmingly at first; aside from Sweet (Phil Morris), the ship's doctor, no one seems to like him. Milo is seen as little more than necessary nerd in the eyes of Commander Rourke (James Garner) and his Dirty Half-Dozen crew: Lara Croft-like first mate Sinclair (Claudia Christian), explosives expert Santorini (Don Novello), Hispanic mechanic Ramirez (Jacqueline Obradors), cook Farnsworth (Jim Varney), seen-it-all switchboard operator Mrs. Packard (Florence Stanley, stealing the show with every impeccably timed utterance) and freakish tunneling engineer Mole (Corey Burton). The team must first battle the fabled Old Testament Leviathan, then it's on to an air-filled underground cave and a WAGES OF FEAR-style trek complete with trucks, nitroglycerine and rickety rope bridges. Rourke's crew soon reaches Atlantis, an ingeniously envisioned, techno-aboriginal cross between Pre-Columbian and African cultures. Unfortunately, the place has gone to seed, and the visitors' arrival sparks tension between Princess Kida (Cree Summer), who thinks the newcomers' ancient "instruction manual" might help save the crumbling, high-tech city, and her kingly father (Leonard Nimoy), who has a good idea of exactly what's going to happen. Before you can say, "Imperius Rex!," hellzapoppin' — along with a mysterious energy source (something the filmmakers never satisfactorily explain). Despite a confusing and contradictory Atlantean backstory and occasionally clichéd dialogue, the film is spectacular, with fantastic design work so well-executed that when a crane's iron hooks disengage and the sub plunges into the sea, you can almost feel its weight. The character designs, however, are much less impressive. Except for the oddly naturalistic Sinclair, the rest look like cartoony characters from one of Disney's '60s films. Worse, as with Disney's RECESS, the film's stereotypes of tough little Hispanics and skinny, bespectacled and socially maladjusted "smart people" are unimaginative and offensive. Fortunately, the film's epic scope — it's the first animated Disney feature to be shot in 70 mm since THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985) — evocative vocal talent and non-stop exploits successfully transport you to another world. leave a comment --Frank Lovece
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