Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Ugh.

I say again, Ugh.

Ok, I went to see Atlantis despite the fact that I swore I would not due to the lousy film focusing abilities of the local teenagers. I was looking forward to it. Heck, it’s a Disney movie and I love Disney animation (within reason, nothing will make me love Hercules.) I was also lured by the fact that the studio that did this film also did Hunchback and Beauty and the Beast. I could forgive them buying Mike Mignola’s style and had decided in advance (and still believe) that it was Disney-fied enough to not annoy me. The day we went was unbearable hot (making it perfect weather to sit in a dark air conditioned theatre) and the local teenager who focused the film had recently gotten new glasses so everything was near perfectly focused.

I thought you guys could, like, draw.
Disney’s animators need to get their heads out of comic books and start looking at how real people are proportioned and how they move. These people have heads the size of baseballs, elbows that rest some where between their shoulders and where their elbows should be and the women have breasts that are larger than their heads. Wait, before you say it was a cartoon and these people aren’t supposed to be in proportion, two of the characters were supposed to be. My husband concurs (you know, the artist in my dining room, the one Disney was considering hiring until they realized they had just laid off a bunch of animators.) The anatomy looked like at came straight out of an Image comic book. Bad, bad, bad.

Mommy, why are the good guys shooting the other good guys?
Quick story synopsis so I can tell you what’s wrong with it. Milo Thatch (Michael J Fox) is an undervalued employee of the Smithsonian who wants to finish his grandfather’s quest of finding Altantis. An old friend of his grandfather’s offers to foot the bill for the entire expedition. Everything’s ready, they leave the next morning. Ah, the magic of the movies. The crew is multicultural which doesn’t fly for the time period, but gosh it’s fun. Milo is not immediately liked by the crew, but they accept him after a while. They find Atlantis and the crew kicks in their master plan. Steal the Heart of Atlantis (a big magical jewel) and take it away for profit, dooming the Atlanteans to die in the cold of, probably, suffocation. Hey, I’m no doctor. I’ll consult one if you like. Be patient, I’m getting to the tricky bit. Milo is furious and tries to stop them. Then he announces that he’s going to stay behind and die with the Atlanteans. Most of the crew, when they have the jewel all loaded up, has a sudden change of heart and decides to stay behind with Milo and die in the dark. Then they decide they have to get the jewel back and a fight ensues.

This is the thing that really gets me about this plot. They’re good guys, they’re bad guys, wait, they’re good guys again. This is a Disney Children’s movie. How are children supposed to keep track of that? When you’re little it’s yes or it’s no, it’s black or it’s white, it’s good guy or it’s bad guy there are no changes of heart. Plus there’s that fight, not fight, fight thing happening. And while I’m on the subject of things that will lose the kiddies, there are too many important characters. In most Disney movies we have three or four important characters and a bad guy, usually accompanied by a henchman. In Altlantis, we are inundated with important characters before we ever arrive in Altantis.

Another thing that bothered me about this movie was that fact that the Atlanteans are just helpless victims. There is a mention at one point of some of them being restless and wanting to go to the surface. If they wanted to make a more adult movie like Hunchback, why didn’t they incorporate a subplot revolving around that? Why doesn’t it occur to the Atlanteans to fight to keep their jewel before the invading group of explorers encourages them? If somebody was removing something from your home that was vitally important to your continued survival, don’t you think you’d try to hang on to it? Even if you had never brandished a stick in violence in your life?

There was some good stuff.
The slapstick, as always, was wonderful. The opening scene of Milo presenting his proposal to the "committee" was great and well done. The character of the Hispanic, female, mechanic was fun if anachronistic. Claudia Christian managed to make her character of ‘second in charge Helga’ not Ivanova-(Babylon 5)-like enough that I didn’t recognize her until ‘Helga’ issued a ship related order. Not an easy task when you're basically playing the same character. The backgrounds were beautiful. Um, let me think. Nope, that’s it.

I am truly disappointed with Disney on this outing. In trying to endlessly top Lion King they manage to offer us garbage that should appeal to every one, but doesn’t. I can’t see how kids would be anything but confused by the change of heart toward the end. I can’t see how adults would be entertained by a plot that isn’t engaging enough and doesn’t offer at least funny asides for them. (Flashback to Little Mermaid. Sebastian on the ocean floor. "Arial, I understand you’re under a lot of pressure down here.") The animators need to stop looking at comics for art direction and the writers need to get back to looking at classic stories and figuring out why they work, not just flaking off on their own and coming up with ill-conceived monstrosities like this.


Recommended: No

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age