Atlantis: The Lost Empire Movie Review

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

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Written by: Tab Murphy (screenplay by), Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale and Joss Whedon and Bryce Zabel & Jackie Zabel and Tab Murphy (story by), David Reynolds (additional screenplay material), Plato (book) (uncredited)
Directed by: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Starring: Michasel J. Fox, Jim Varney, James Garner, John Mahoney, Leonard Nimoy
Rated: PG
Watch the trailer

Plot
A young linguist named Milo Thatch joins an intrepid group of explorers to find the mysterious lost continent of Atlantis.

Verdict
This seems to target an older audience with a more grounded narrative. While I'll allow for looser logic and realism in something animated, if this was a live action movie it would be mundane. This is along the lines of 2008's Journey to the Center of the Earth. That wasn't very engaging either. Taking advantage of the medium by making this journey more of a fantastical adventure and more fun would have helped.
Skip it.

Review
This tries to rely on the scale of the adventure rather than doing much with the story or characters. The characters feel like cartoon characters in appearance and action. They're tropes and stereotype. The main character is a hapless scholar searching for the lost city of Atlantis. The search for Atlantis is inherently interesting, but this fails to do anything more with that.

Michael J. Fox voices Milo Thatch

This is geared for older kids, going for a more realistic adventure. It doesn't have any musical numbers or overly cutesy segments. That's not a problem, but instead this is not too far from a by the numbers action adventure movie. It's not bad, but it also isn't in line with Disney's typical style. I'd expect most of the backlash stems from that.

Atlantis should have been much cooler. That could have been a wow moment where we see this advanced city, but instead the reveal, like most of the movie, is underwhelming. The art style was developed by comic book artist Mike Mignola. This movies tries to straddle the line between typical Disney musical and grittier comic, but instead it ends up just lacking any fun.