Atlantis: The Lost Empire

The Silver Petticoat Review

It's funny to think that, only a few years ago, there was such a thing as the Disney Vault: a dark and terrible place where Disney animated classics were locked away for seven years, only to be released for a limited time. I literally waited thirteen years to buy my copy of Beauty and the Beast, my all-time favourite. Nowadays Disney has so much money that they don’t need to create scarcity. With Disney+ as well as the decision to rerelease all feature films with new chronological covers, the Vault has been demolished and all our favourite films are out in the world living their best life. 

Disney+ also means that I now have access to animated features that I missed growing up. To be honest though, Disney’s later films leave a bit to be desired, like the last one I sat down to become acquainted with: Atlantis.

Atlantis tells the story of a down-and-out linguist who is desperate to finish his grandfather’s work and find the lost city of Atlantis. After being backed by an eccentric millionaire, Milo finds himself on a voyage to the mysterious with a clever and competent crew at his side. But finding the lost city brings more than they bargained for. The Atlantians’ culture is dying and, once there Milo and his team must make a difficult choice, use the knowledge and power of Atlantis to further their own society or save the Atlantians. 

This is a film of harsher drawing and animating than peak Disney, so closer to films such as Hercules and Lilo & Stitch. The story itself is interesting with solid moral lessons about the greater good, knowledge being power, and the morally corrupting influence of materialism. Standard stuff really. There’s a fun and quirky bunch of mismatched characters that work together quite well, though none of the characters, aside from Sweet the big, burly, medical professional inspire much of an emotional attachment. 

Deja Reviewer

And then we have the glaringly frustrating narrative reasons for why certain things work within the movie; the biggest of these being why the Atlantians can speak practically every single language in the world. While it’s kind of funny to begin with, it quickly feels like no further narrative thought aside from “Disney magic” has gone into the explanation for this. And then of course we have the stinging colonialist/white supremacy story of white man coming to save a bunch of savages (even though the ‘savages’ are highly intelligent, more so than the white man!). 

Aside from the central mystery of the Atlantis myth, this animated feature really does not offer much in the way of enjoyment, at least certainly not for mature audiences. Visually, it’s very pretty and some of the artistic designs are to be applauded, but ultimately, I’d be happy to not watch this ever again.

Director: Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise

Cast: Michael J. Fox, Corey Burton, Claudia Christian, James Garner, John Mahoney, Phil Morris, Don Novello, Cree Summer, Jacqueline Obradors, David Ogden Stiers, Jim Cummings, & Leonard Nimoy