IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched on Blu-Ray
At the turn of the millennium, a lot was happening at Disney. Of course, they had to keep up with the times; pure animated films in the cinema were slowly dying out, but the studio still held on to them. Nevertheless, "Atlantis" is once again a somewhat different Disney film, because it is not mainly aimed at children.
The action takes place in 1914 and is about the young scientist Milo, who is firmly convinced that Atlantis existed. But he is not taken seriously until one day the rich entrepreneur Mr. Whitmore arrives at Milo's house. He was friends with his father and is also looking for proof of Atlantis. Whitmore has put together a group and an expedition is to start, in which Milo is to take part. So now Disney has taken on the myth of Atlantis and there would certainly have been a lot of potential for the studio's typical trademarks, but this time they wanted to go completely different ways. The script does not seem childlike, there are no cute characters, no talking animals or anything else like that, and so "Atlantis" seems at the same time like an animated film aimed equally at adventurous adults. Disney's really good films have always had a suitable mix and can also be watched wonderfully by older audiences, but nevertheless such a consistent approach was not known from the studio before.
This doesn't mean that children can't have fun with the work, but you definitely shouldn't expect a comedy here. There are gags from time to time that are well done, but that is never the main focus. This is much more of an action-packed adventure film that has plenty of pace and some brilliant scenes. From a craftsmanship point of view, it looks excellent. There is not much left of the old-fashioned cartoon and you can see that the computer was heavily used here, but still the visuals are very good and I liked it a lot. So the production is convincing and it's only the atmosphere that takes some getting used to, because the typical Disney charm is missing. You miss the cuteness a bit, you look in vain for heart-warming supporting characters, there is no singing and so you never really feel like you are at Disney. However, for a change, this is well done and only proves that they were still brave and took experiments. Since they didn't exactly put a small budget into the film, it was a bit of a gamble.
Not everyone will agree on the characters, but I thought they were well done. Milo actually remains a little pale as the main character, but he is still quite likeable. I really liked the different people in the group, because they are nicely varied and come across as somewhat eccentric. In the second half there are also the characters from Atlantis. Here the sympathies are limited, but you can still relate to these characters. In any case, it's enough to keep you entertained for 95 minutes. The running time actually turned out to be higher for once, which only confirms that you are dealing with a real film that takes its time for an introduction, then has a long middle section and offers an action-packed finale at the end. I was entertained.
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