Atlantis review (non-spoiler)

[The Mad Hatter]

Just got back from seeing Atlantis. The movie was, as expected, another fairly serious departure for Disney (the first being TENG). But did the departure work? Well, mostly.

I won't go into the plot here, since I'm sure most of you have the basic idea (plus I don't do reviews that way). But it really all boils down to a treasure hunt with lots of action sequences. In fact, it seemed similar, in a way, to Tomb Raider (which also opened this week). Fortunately, unlike the reportedly hokey plot of Tomb Raider, Atlantis fares pretty well, with only small doses of new-agey spirituality and the usual Disney sentimentalism. There were plot holes--several of them--but they're not quite severe enough to derail the film.

The tone is exactly right. Surprisingly, there's a damn high body count for this flick, though most of it is glossed over. Atlantis itself elicits a good deal of wonder. The treasure hunt and mystery are serious enough without going overboard with an inflated sense of importance, as Pocahontas did. And yes, there's plenty of Disney humor, both in dialogue and animation, to go around (much more so than Pocahontas, again), but it never seems tacked on or superfluous.

The characters are a fun lot, though not nearly as memorable as the cast of TENG. Yes, it's a multiethnic bunch of of any number of war movies, but Disney gets decent enough mileage out of most of them. Jim Varney's last performance (before his death) as Cookie is a hoot, so he went out on a good note. Michael J. Fox does a great job as Milo Thatch, as his natural voice is just perfect for his character. Elmyra/Max/Cree Summers does a good enough job as Princess Kida, though it's nothing special. James Garner is his usual great self as Commander Rourke.

The visuals? The git at Entertainment Weekly is officially an idiot. Atlantis looked absolutely great, as Disney certainly didn't slouch in bringing Atlantis to life. Though both cel and CGI. All of the machinery looks good and animates well, as do the Atlantian contraptions. The CGI doesn't look quite as well blended with the cel stuff as they lack the accentuated border lines of most cartoons, though it certainly blends a heck of a lot better than the stuff in Titan A.E.

The problem is that this isn't quite the "adult" movie we've been hoping for from Disney, simply because the movie isn't quite sophisticated enough. It's certainly more sophisticated than the usual Disney fare, not to mention the average brainless action movie. (I'd be willing to bet it's more sophisticated than Tomb Raider, too.) Nevertheless, it's still lightweight fare that doesn't get quite complex or deep enough for my tastes.

Even so, I enjoyed it and thought it was a nice chage of pace from the usual fairy tales we get from Disney. I'll probably see it again. I'm just praying it does decent box office... I have to friends that are usually big Disney fans, and they don't want to see this one.

[Craig Marinaro]

Boy...we're all thrilled about this one, aren't we? ;)

Saw it today, and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected I would. The visuals were fabulous. In previous D*sney efforts like Tarzan the excessive CGI stuck out like a sore thumb (ouch!). Here, while it's not perfect, it's *MUCH* more convincing. And the lighting and colors did a lot to set the mood. Usually, it's the action scenes that get the really awesome effects, and the more talky dialogue scenes are just the characters standing in front of a background. Here, even the simplest scenes are dazzling (i.e., the scene early on, with Milo and...uh...the old guy talking in a dark room, illuminated by a dimly glowing tank. Very nifty).

I also found the characters much less bland than the usual D*sney stuff these days. Milo isn't a larger-than-life character who must teach a painfully obvious lesson to a bunch of dense, biased clods, a la Pocahontas or Mulan. He's not a larger-than-life social misfit who must find his place in a cold, superficial world, a la Hunchback or Tarzan. He's just an average nerd trying to continue his grampa's dream. Much more believable, much more likable, imho. Michael J. Fox's voicing is a great aid--the way his voice cracks and fades off at the end of a sentence sometimes gives Milo a very down-to-earth feel that is *VERY* rare in animation (usually actors doing animation voiceovers try to be as exaggerated and overblown as possible). And some of his facial expressions were priceless--the expressions on all the characters, in fact, were much more rubbery and flexible than the typical D*sney fare. Good--you're using a medium with infinite possibilities, why not take advantage of them?

Rourke has been called in various places a rip-off of the bad guy from Tarzan. And when I first saw Tarzan, I criticized *THAT* villain of being a totally unoriginal, uninteresting character. I'll be honest here--I liked Rourke simply because I love Jim Garner. The character wasn't that well-written, but Garner did a great job. Especially loved the last scene, where he's attacking Milo on the blimp-thing, and finally goes over the edge. The transition from that usual Garner calm drawl to a screaming lunatic made the scene for me, even though the dialogue was as hackneyed as could be.

The rest of the guys on the mission were great too--a larger-than-usual key cast for a D*sney film, and they pulled it off splendidly. One of my favorite scenes in the film was the bedtime "what's your story?" scene. It was a great balance of drama and comedy--it managed to nicely create sympathy for many of the characters, but at the same time it was obviously intended as a loving jab at all those films that have a totally gratuitous "let's talk about our pasts around a campfire" scene.

Jim Varney's Cookie character is reminiscent of the babbling drunk in Blazing Saddles, and gets some solid laughs. Vinny is also a lot of fun. Sweet and Audrey border on being rather trite characters, but they're fine. Mole the dirtmonger had the potential to be an obnoxious "sidekick" type, there just to amuse the kiddies with stupid behavior--but thankfully, that potential is not realized, and he is, most of the time, an amusing feller. Helga seemed a pretty one-dimensional character, but she made for nice eye-candy. The Lunchlady Doris-esque operator delivered some of the best laughs of the film.

I think the thing that really differentiated this film from stuff like Hunchback or Tarzan in my mind is that the comedy is integrated with the drama so much better, giving the whole film a much more natural feel. The other films had a rather self-important style, with all that heavy drama, and then the humor was just tacked on. It seemed too blatant--every joke seemed to be, "HEY! This is funny! FUNNY! Get it? LAUGH! Okay, now we're being serious again--stop laughing." Here, it worked with the scene. It flowed naturally. This may be a bad thing, if movie audiences have become too used to the other style, though. The whole film hardly got a laugh out of anyone in the theater besides me and my sister. There were some great comic moments that just totally blew over everyone's heads because they caught them unawares. Oh well. Guess they've been desensitized in this age of laughtracks.

The writing as a whole was pretty sharp. There were a few scenes that seemed rather hokey, but all in all the dialogue was pretty tight. My only major complaint is the plot. It starts out promising, with the "bunch of people on a quest to find a lost treasure" premise. What will happen to these people? Will they grow as a group? Will they have all sorts of adventures and confrontations with wild, unpredictable creatures of the deep? But the "adventure" theme is lost about halfway through, once they find Atlantis, and it descends into a rather predictable D*sney plot. Not nearly as predictable as most of the current-day D*sney films I incessantly whine about. But still, all the elements are here--when the Princess is leading Milo through the beautiful new world he’s just discovered, I was half anticipating her breaking into “Colors of the Wind.” And when Rourke swipes the life-force and dooms the civilization, and all the others decide to side with Milo after some internal debate, and then Milo is ready to give up, and then Sweet delivers that ultra-sweet monologue winding up with a quote from Milo’s grandfather, and then Milo suddenly becoming determined to do the right thing...something inside me was groaning, "Ooooh, spare me."

But the inevitable cliches inside, I thought it was a pretty good film. Not all that groundbreaking, but it’s the most I’ve enjoyed a "serious" D*sney venture in years. I think I’d recommend it, but don’t expect *TOO* much from it.

-C
Also saw the trailer for Monsters, Inc. Looks to be another winner from the Pixar folk...I can’t wait!

[The Mad Hatter]

Woah, someone actually rescued this post from the vortex of oblivion? Cool. Actually, I was wondering if anyone else here saw it... doesn't bode well for Atlantis' future if even the toon heads aren't into it...

And I'll have to agree with you at the cringe-worthy scene where everyone joins Milo in turning away from Rourke... that made me wince. That part could have been written a bit better.

But I'm happy they tried their hand at something different. I'm also curious to see how their next two sci-fi movies turn out (Lilo and Stitch & Treasure Planet).