Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Grade: C
Cast: (voices of) Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, and James Garner
Director: Gary Trousdale
Rated G for general audiences


With "Atlantis: The Lost Empire," Disney wanted to take a new direction in their animation. And they sure have. The backgrounds and exotic characters are drawn in sharper, more angular ways. However, as they have taken a new direction in animation, they have taken a new direction in storytelling. The problem: that direction is a step backward.

The story follows a young scientist named Milo (voiced by Michael J. Fox) who is obsessed with the lost city of Atlantis. He's been trying to get the "powers that be" to let him assemble a crew and head down there. 'No' is the resounding answer each time, that is until Milo is given his father's old journal about his exploration of Atlantis. So, a crew is assembled, and sent down there.

What starts out as a pretty exciting adventure turns into a humorless narrative and a boring plot that includes a princess named Kida (voiced by Cree Summer) and her aging, king father who objects to Milo and his crew being there. Of course there is the obligatory Disney Romance(TM) that pretty much could have been excised seeing as though it takes up most of the time of the film's "Atlantis Chapter".

The events and actions that take place in the underwater world are resolved in record time, seeing as though much of the film's running time is taken up with the somewhat troublesome trip down to the lost city. Everything turns out perfect and happy, and it really is quite annoying. If Disney actually had some cajones, they could've lengthened the running time, made the film more dramatic, fleshed out it's character, give us a storyline that we could actually give a damn about, and make more polished, impressive feature that would appeal to all ages.

I'm a great lover of the animated Disney flicks, but this one just doesn't make the cut. It's boring, it has thin characters, and I really couldn't care less about the plights of any of these people. Disney better get to work and come up with something a lot better than this next summer. It's already failed at the box office, and it failed with this critic.


-Brian Jones, July 2002