Atlantis: The Lost Empire
***
Cinema
Releases - October 19, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate U. 95 minutes.
Directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise. Written by Tab Murphy; from a story
by Tab Murphy, Kirk Wise, Bryce Zabel, Jackie Zabel. With the voices of Michael
J. Fox, Cree Summer, James Garner, Jacqueline Obradors.
Not many Disney cartoons begin with quotes from
Plato, but "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" does. It's also unusual
for these movies to be influenced by the Japanese style of anime, but again,
"Atlantis" defies convention. It is imaginative, experimental and above all
clever; maybe Disney is about to return to form.
The main player here is a young museum curator
voiced by Michael J. Fox; his grandfather was an explorer who loved to harp
on about the lost city of Atlantis, and Fox has inherited the obsession.
Early on in the picture one of the grandfather's old colleagues ends up giving
our hero the funding to go on an expedition to find Atlantis, and away he
goes, accompanied by a colourful cast of characters that includes a tough
general (James Garner), an eccentric old cook (Jim Varney), a crusty old
secretary (Claudia Christian), a solid army doctor (Phil Morris) and a young
mechanic (Jacqueline Obradors).
The first half of the film follows the quest for
the city, which requires imaginative reading of old texts and expert feats
of engineering; the second half involves the fading joys of Atlantis, which
seems like a beautiful utopia inhabited by wonderful people, but whose life
force is actually fading.
The animation is beautiful, especially when we
get to Atlantis, whose artefacts and tropical riches look bright and stunning.
The cast is also charming -- there isn't actually a lot of comic banter,
but the energetic personalities of people like Fox and Garner prevent us
from noticing. "Atlantis" does not go to the comic extremes of "Aladdin",
but it sure doesn't seem as stolid as something like
"Pocahontas".
Over the past few years, the family entertainment
of new studios has been clearly eclipsing the work of Disney; a picture like
DreamWorks' "Shrek" makes the moviemaking giant look like a dinosaur. "Atlantis"
seems to have been influenced by another DreamWorks effort, "The Road to
El Dorado", which was also an energetic animation about a quest to find a
mythical kingdom, and was one of last year's best films. Disney is being
kept on its toes, which can only be a good thing.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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