The submarine is called the Ulysses, and it does not survive the first act. That tells you most of what you need to know about Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Disney’s 2001 attempt to swap the fairy-tale musical for a Jules Verne adventure. It is a film with a striking look, a strong cast, and a script that keeps sinking.
Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, written by Tab Murphy with Bryce Zabel, Jackie Zabel, Joss Whedon, Wise and Trousdale, the film runs 95 minutes. It stars Michael J. Fox as Milo Thatch, James Garner as Commander Rourke, and Cree Summer as Princess Kida. It scored 52 on Metacritic. That number is fair.
Trailer, via Disney.
Milo Thatch and the Shepherd’s Journal
Milo is a young linguist in 1914 Washington, D.C. He wants to find Atlantis. His employers ridicule his theories. Then eccentric millionaire Preston B. Whitmore, a friend of Milo’s dead adventurer grandfather, hands him a seat on an expedition and the Shepherd’s Journal, an ancient Atlantean manuscript with directions to the city.
Fox was chosen, Wise said, because he gave his characters his own personality and made them more believable on screen. Fox said voice work was easier than live action because he did not have to worry about how he looked while delivering lines. He was also offered a role in Titan A.E. He let his son pick. His son picked this one.
That is a charming piece of casting trivia. It is also the most alive thing in the first hour.
The Crew of the Ulysses
Milo’s teammates are a mercenary crew with one trait each. Lieutenant Helga Sinclair. Demolitions man Vincenzo Santorini. Geologist Gaetan “Mole” Molière. Medical officer Joshua Sweet. Mechanic Audrey Ramirez. Radio operator Wilhelmina Packard. Mess cook Jebidiah “Cookie” Farnsworth. Plus a platoon of mercenaries who exist to drown.
A robotic leviathan destroys the Ulysses at the cave entrance and kills most of the crew. Milo and the survivors escape in smaller craft. They emerge among ancient ruins. Milo translates the journal and guides them under a dormant volcano to the remains of Atlantis.
The film’s defenders call this a departure. It is a departure. It is also a long, grim stretch of travel with a crew the script never bothers to make us care about.
Princess Kida and the King Who Sends Them Away
Atlantis greets them with Princess Kidagakash “Kida” Nedakh. She is around 8,500 years old and looks like a young woman. She takes them to her father, King Kashekim, who orders them to leave. Then he learns Milo can read the Atlantean language, a skill the Atlanteans lost over millennia.
Cree Summer’s Kida is the film’s best idea. Randy Haycock, her supervising animator, said Summer was “intimidating” when he first met her, and that this shaped how he wanted Kida to look and act when she meets Milo. You can see it. Kida has weight and presence in a film that mostly does not.
Leonard Nimoy voices the Atlantean King. James Garner voices Rourke. Wise picked Garner for his action-film background, especially war and Western pictures, and said the role “fits him like a glove.” Garner’s answer when asked: “I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
A Visual Style Borrowed From Mike Mignola
Here is where Atlantis earns its keep. The film adopted the distinctive visual style of comic artist Mike Mignola, one of its production designers. It used more CGI than any previous traditionally animated Disney feature, and it remains one of the few shot in anamorphic format.
Linguist Marc Okrand built an Atlantean language for the film. James Newton Howard wrote the score. These are real choices, and they show on screen. The ruins have geometry. The leviathan has mass. The light is colder than anything in the Disney canon around it.
Viewers have noted that Milo resembles Okrand. Okrand said Milo’s supervising animator, John Pomeroy, sketched him and claimed not to know how a linguist looked or acted. That is a good story about a film that needed more of them.
The Cast, and the One Who Never Saw It
| Role | Voice actor |
|---|---|
| Milo Thatch | Michael J. Fox |
| Princess Kida | Cree Summer |
| Commander Rourke | James Garner |
| Lieutenant Helga | Claudia Christian |
| Gaetan “Mole” Molière | Corey Burton |
| Dr. Joshua Sweet | Phil Morris |
| Audrey Ramirez | Jacqueline Obradors |
| Vincenzo Santorini | Don Novello |
| Jebidiah “Cookie” Farnsworth | Jim Varney |
| Wilhelmina Packard | Florence Stanley |
| Preston B. Whitmore | John Mahoney |
| Atlantean King | Leonard Nimoy |
Jim Varney, the voice of Cookie, died of lung cancer in February 2000. He never saw the finished film. Producer Don Hahn said he was shown clips of his character’s performance during his sessions and “He loved it.” Shawn Keller, Cookie’s supervising animator, said Varney knew he would not see the film before he died.
That is the heaviest fact attached to Atlantis. It is also the one the film’s marketing never had to carry.
What the Film Was Up Against
Atlantis arrived as audience interest in animated films was shifting away from traditional animation. That context matters, but it does not excuse the result.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Ancient past | An apocalyptic explosion and megatsunami destroy all but the core of Atlantis, which sinks beneath the waves |
| 1914, Washington, D.C. | Milo is ridiculed, then recruited by Whitmore |
| Aboard the Ulysses | Milo meets the crew; a leviathan destroys the sub and kills most of the platoon |
| Cave and ruins | Survivors escape in smaller craft and emerge among ancient ruins |
| Under the volcano | Milo translates the journal and leads the team to Atlantis |
| Atlantis | Kida greets them; King Kashekim orders them out, then learns Milo reads the language |
Read that table again. Almost none of it is about a character. It is a sequence of events, and the film plays like one.
The Verdict on Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 5.2 of 10. The Mignola design, Okrand’s language and Howard’s score are genuine craft, and Kida is a real character in a film that otherwise fields a crew of one-note mercenaries. The leviathan attack is the best sequence, and it happens before the story properly starts.
The problem is Milo. He is a linguist whose great skill — reading a lost language — is the one thing the film treats as a plot key rather than a personality. Fox is good. The writing gives him little to be good with.
Trousdale, Wise, Hahn and Murphy set out to make an adventure picture instead of another musical. That was the right instinct. The execution is a long voyage to a beautiful room where nothing much happens. Disney spent more CGI than ever before on a film that still feels thin.
Cookie’s voice is gone. The Ulysses is gone. What remains is a handsome, cold curiosity — worth a look for the design, not for the journey. 5.2 of 10.
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