Two For Flinching - Atlantis: The Lost Empire

41 – Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Today's movie is the 41^st feature in the Disney Classics series, 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The story is about a young man, Milo Thatch, that wants to find the lost city of Atlantis. He ends up meeting a man named Whitmore who funds Milo's tripe because of a promise he made to Milo's grandfather. Milo, along with a crew led by Commander Rourke, all get on a very crazy futuristic submarine to find the lost city. When they do find it, after some trouble, they discover that there are still people that live there. It seems they use a special power to stay alive. The commander then reveals that their goal is really to find treasure and wants to take this power source from the people of Atlantis. Milo then has to stop him with help from one of the Atlantis inhabitants, Kida.

Milo is introduced as a pretty geeky and clumsy guy with a big obsession with Atlantis. He is poor and tries to convince the museum that he works at to fund his adventure. He looks up to his grandfather who was also an adventurer obsessed with Atlantis. He isn't taken seriously by the museum and almost gives up hope when Whitmore meets him. He becomes the Atlantis expert on the trip and uses his linguist and cartographer skills to decipher the “Shepherd’s Journal” which has a ton of information about Atlantis. He cares deeply about knowledge and opposes Rourke's goal of finding treasure at the expense of Atlantis and it's people. It's really admirable that he is so determined to go on the journey and that he values knowledge. Michael J. Fox did a good job with him and I think the filmmakers really focused on making his growth from geeky to a hero feel natural.

Whitmore was friends with Milo's grandfather and made a bet with him that if Milo's grandfather found proof of Atlantis, Whitmore would fund the whole trip. Milo's grandfather sadly died before he got a chance so Whitmore finds Milo to go in his stead. Whitmore is really eccentric and interesting but they didn't really use him very much. The filmmakers did do something I thought was cool. The characters constantly bring up Milo's grandfather and talk about him which really makes it feel like he was incredibly important. I wish they had done a bit more with that but I'm also glad they didn't take the obvious route of having him show up at Atlantis later on.

Milo is helped, and eventually betrayed, by a pretty big crew. Doctor Joshua Strongbear Sweet is a part African American, part Native American, doctor who is very kind but a bit overzealous. Vinny Sontorini is their demolitions expert who really loves blowing things up but has a very laid back attitude. Audrey Ramirez is their young teenage engineer who is very feisty and doesn't really act her age. Wilhelmina Berta Packard is their radio operator who is very lax and moves at her own pace. Cookie is their old cook, though he's not a very good one. Finally, there's Mole, a crazy french guy with an obsession with dirt and digging. Some of these guys actually get some pretty nice back stories that make you really feel like they're actual good characters. Some of them, however, don't and don't really get any development whatsoever. Mole is really only there for humor and, while he does have some funny moments, I feel like he was unnecessary when you have Wilhelmina and Cookie that serve similar roles. The characters all get some legitimately funny moments and it's really great when they decide to defy Rourke and join Milo.

Kida is a girl who meets Milo in Atlantis. She is the daughter of the King of Atlantis and was alive when Atlantis fell. Her mother was taken by a strange power as Atlantis fell into the ocean. She is very forceful and inquisitive and hopes that the people from the surface can help their people. The king, on the other hand, is very wary of the surface dwellers and is very protective of her. He doesn't want her taken like her mother was. While Kida has an interesting back story, she really doesn't get a ton of screen time. She only shows up halfway through the movie and then gets taken by the power shortly after that. I don't think we got a real clear idea of who she is. Most of the time she's there they focus on her bonding with Milo. I don't think they had fantastic chemistry but the romance didn't feel too forced either.

Commander Rourke actually comes off as a good guy before. It seemed he cared about the crew and respected Milo's grandfather but he later reveals that he just did it all for the money. He really just ended up being a standard villain when they could have done something more interesting. He had better reasons for wanting to take everything. They started with 200 people and almost all of them died, it would make sense that he would want to finish the mission for those people. Instead, they made him another generic villain with an obsession with money. His lieutenant Helga was even worse. They made a point to have her bring up that they didn't know people would be down there, but she doesn't do anything about it. She got no character development at all.

This movie really went back to the kind of epic scenery and gorgeous visuals of other Disney movies. The whole thing has a kind of Star Wars vibe, not with it's story but just it's tone. It feels like a big adventure, they use the iconic Star Wars wipes to transition between scenes and even Rourke's soldiers have a Storm Trooper idea to them. On top of that, Milo even goes through a Luke Sywalker-esque transformation from geeky linguist to Atlantian warrior. The score really worked for this movie as well and the choice to avoid the musical style again worked for this movie. They really could have kept the big submarine they leave on the adventure from, instead of having it get destroyed almost immediately. That scene could have been really great if they had had some more adventures with it. The world they created is really interesting but they fill it with so much complication that it just gets bogged down. Things just seem to happen because it's pretty but you rarely actually know what's happening.

The big struggle in this movie is when Milo wants to study Atlantis but Rourke is only interested in money. Milo brings up the question to the crew earlier and sees that he seems to be the only one that is on the adventure for the adventure and knowledge. It's a really great moment when the crew changes their minds and decide to help Milo. Unfortunately, this immediately gets ruined by the people of Atlantis giving them the riches they wanted. It just ruins the message. They also spend too much time setting up red herrings that Rourke isn't a bad guy. It doesn't make sense when Milo is so shocked by Rourke revealing his plan since that was the plan from the beginning. Some of the opening lines are spoken b Milo saying he wants to find the power source and bring it to the surface. They had no reason to think there would be people in Atlantis but Milo should have realized Rourke's plan and tried to convince him not to go through with it.

So this movie wasn't horrible. I liked the characters and how some of them changed but the cast was just way too big. The story itself was just a mess. There is way too much going on and it gets super overcomplicated. Way too much happens without a clear idea of what's going on just because it would make for a pretty scene. They also take too long to get to the actual story with the discovery of Atlantis happening when the movie is halfway over. It just sucks because this movie did have so much potential. They created a really cool world with some interesting characters but they got way too wrapped up in the details and made a story that is way too complicated.

41 down. 12 to go.