Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Year: 2001
Rating: PG
Length: 96 minutes / 1.60 hours
I can appreciate that Disney was trying to do new and interesting things at the beginning of the millennium. There seemed to be a trend of more male-focused movies with Treasure Planet (2002) and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). That these were leaning into science fiction instead of fantasy was also a nice change of pace. Of course, in this era of Disney trying to find its identity in a post-Toy Story (1995) world, I can see why movies like Atlantis have since (ironically) been forgotten.
While Treasure Planet was an adaptation of Treasure Island, Atlantis was an original story. Granted, some of the key elements felt like Stargate (1994), but that’s mostly because ancient tech stories have similar story beats and characters. The 1910s aesthetic and archetypes of the explorers was something new to Disney animation and were in a brown-coded contrast to the blue world of Atlantis. Of course, the themes of greed and colonialism shine through just as they did in previous Disney works like Pocahontas (1995).
Perhaps it’s because musicals aren’t usually something males go for, but I think it’s the one thing that hindered this movie and Treasure Planet into obscurity. There’s just not anything terribly memorable about this movie despite the interesting things they tried to do with it. Even the lesser-known Disney movies usually have a song or two that people remember. In fact, I’d claim this is the reason Chicken Little (2005), Meet the Robinsons (2007), and Bolt (2008) also are not remembered as well—even if these were CGI films and not traditionally animated like Atlantis was. Still, Atlantis is a deep cut from Disney’s early millennium era that hopefully does not remain forgotten.
A more original Disney work buried due to their failure to market, I give Atlantis: The Lost Empire 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
