Reviews for Atlantis




By Mario

Not the Nadia or Stargate ripoff people claim it to be nor the soulless "Disney on automatic" movie people say it is, Atlantis: The Lost Empire is one of the most tragically underrated movies ever. All over the internet, critics and ordinary people alike gave this movie pathetic grades, calling it average and giving it C's, even comparing it to Shrek, which I think is an unfair comparison. Shrek was a computer animated comedy. Atlantis was a traditionally animated adventure.

Far from being a horrible movie, Atlantis is classic Disney through and through. In fact, it is an engaging, jaw-dropping and wide-eyed adventurous spectacle, one that is touching at parts. Just because Shrek, with its vivid computer animation, came out the same year doesn't mean Atlantis, with its traditional animation, is "retro" as some critics put it. It also doesn't mean that just because it isn't the traditional Disney comedy with sidekicks and songs that it isn't humorous or entertaining. Quite the contrary, it is VERY entertaining, and in fact, the humor is better blended into the movie than many Disney movies.

While I admit that Atlantis: The Lost Empire takes some getting used to, it is NOT soulless, and it does have a story, one that has a suprising amount of depth and beauty. In fact, upon the second viewing, everything made A LOT more sense, and the characters remained pretty believable, more so than before. It was pretty easy to become emotionally attached to many of them. While Atlantis doesn't have the beauty and refinement of Beauty and the Beast or Disney's last movie, The Emperor's New Groove, as Cody Clark put it, "it is a refreshing departure from the lockstep, imitative sameness of such pallid efforts as Tarzan, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I wholeheartedly agree. And with all my heart, I give Atlantis: The Lost Empire a full five stars.

By MissFitt Lesbian
I never thought it would happen, but Atlantis finally came along and knocked The Hunchback of Notre Dame out of my #1 favorite movie spot. It was the most original, engaging, humorous movie I have ever seen. I've always had a tendency to attach myself to the underdog, and this is no exception. All summer long in 2001, Atlantis was undermined, insulted, underrated, and even made fun of (gasp)! I don't know how these people didn't see the sheer beauty and intelligence of this film, but I'm really happy that I did see it.

I loved all the characters. They each had distinct, wonderfully refreshing and original personalities. My favorite character was the sexy, commanding, Lieutenant Helga Sinclair, a new breed of Disney Semi-Villainess. With the broad range of personalities and ethnic diversity, everyone can find a character that they can identify with, or at least know someone like them. When I first heard that there was a wide array of characters in this film, I feared stereotypes and/or unimaginative "seen this all somewhere before" type of character development, but that did not happen!

The themes of the film itself are not easy to pick up right away. I strongly suggest seeing it more than once to fully appriciate the
magnitude of it's underlying meanings. Bold statements on spirituality and rights and wrongs of using awesome powers for questionable reasons are subtle in the film, but are made nonetheless.

Everyone, if you haven't already seen this movie, what are you waiting for!? Go, NOW! And to those who have seen it, see it again! I guarantee you will see something you missed before!


By Red Pickle Duck Spoilers

Atlantis easily could have been one of the greatest films of all times. It had an intreaguing plot, an interesting cast, and the market for adult animation is opening up.

So what went wrong?

I myself am not a fan of stylized animation, and this annoyed me throughout the film. The color schemes and the character designs were beautiful; but the harsh angles (and especially Milo's fingers, believe it or not) annoyed be throughout the film.

Stepping away from aesthetics, the entire film was rushed. It had a good plot, but we barely got to see any character development beside's Milo's, and possibly Audrey's.

So if I'm trashing this movie, why am I giving it so many stars? What this film represents. This movie is NOT a child's movie. Not that they couldn't see it and not see the humor, but its fairly violent in some aspects (not that violent, but its still there) and the ideas are fairly adult. I had to watch the movie twice to catch all the jokes. Basically, I liked this movie. I liked it a lot, but Disney cut itself short. Cutting out the plot holes, the bad stylization and the pace, this movie was excellent. You get to see a wide range of sidekicks (done right) and you don't know what to expect next.

In short, I do not recommend this movie to younger children. Maybe they'll understand it. Maybe they won't. However, this movie appeals more to the older generation, but probably not a good group-party movie for the amount of depth this movie portrays.


By Booklover139 Spoilers

I think with this film Disney had a golden opportunity and blew it. First of all, decide if it's going to be for adults or kids, then make it for them. The characters didn't have time to be developed, and it takes a few viewings to really get it. They could have done a whole lot more with Atlantis itself. I mean, you've got this whole lost civilization, but all we learn about it is they wear tatoos and it's dying. The research could have been clearer, not to mention more accurate. (Come on, only in English could you go from ICeland to IReland.) The animation was new, but as with Milo's fingernails, if you're going to go angular, be more attractive. Although the Heart of Atlantis was apparently the "heart" of the movie, it wasn't explained or developed very well. It could have been funnier, but as I said, there wasn't time, and that killed it. Finallly, a lot of stuff was unneccessary, such as the sub crew, the violence which detracted from the movie, and some of the characters could have been either cut so the ones left could be more developed, or condensed into fewer characters. At least Helga wasn't typical.

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