Just saw Disney's Atlantis (1 Viewer)

[Shayne Lebrun]

Yeah, yeah, I know it's kinda late. But I've been wanting to see it, and decided to take my daughter,Morgan, who'll turn four in September.
Possibly spoilers ahead.
First, I have to say this is easily the finest Disney movie I've ever seen in my life. I have a very simple system that I use to rate Disney movies, and that system is this: if anybody dies, it's probably going to wind up being a good Disney movie. Why? Cuz it's not recycled kiddie pablum. Oh, and no singing. That blew me away when I realized it. There was no singing. This supplants Tarzan, btw, as being my favourite Disney movie (DESPITE Rosie..that's how good it was) and The Lion King moves down to number three.
The opening scene almost had me in tears; that's a good start. It just went from there; the whole movie was an emotional roller coaster ride. That amazed me.
Picking out voices was fun; Leonard Nimoy, the dad from Frasier, Cree Summer, Claudia Christinson (horrid spelling, I know) and so on.
Morgan was sat down before we went, and had the rules of theatre explained to her. She was a perfect little angel, didn't move through the whole movie other than to sometimes pop some popcorn into her mouth. Had to read the subtitles to her, though.
I did think the movie moved a bit quickly, though. "What? You can read our language! Wow. Maybe you can save our civilization." "Sure, what do you need read?" "Right here..." "Blah blah blah, oh, just do this this and this." "Great! Thanks."
One thing I never figured out was weather the old guy, wots-his-name, Whitman? The backer. Either way, I never figured out if he wanted Milo to succeed, or if he knew of, and approved of, the mercenaries plans.
Oh, and the adult humor. Lots of that. And a smoking woman. Isn't that an R rating right there?
I think the neatest part, though, was at the end, when I looked over at Morgan, and saw tears streaming down her face. "Why are you crying?" I said. "I'm not crying." "Ok, why are there tears streaming down your face?" "Because I'm so happy." Good stuff.
As an aside, it was also one of the better experiences I've had with a theater lately. The print was good, good sound, etc etc. The place was chock full o' kids, noon on a sunday, but they were all pretty quiet.
Oh, and let me say that if Disney does for this what they did for New Groove, Tarzan and (after some poking and prodding) a Bug's Life, not to mention Toy Story, in terms of awesome special edition DVD sets, I'll be a happy happy man. Lets hope the Special Edition Multi-Disc set isn't as lost as the city was.
[Edited last by Shayne Lebrun on August 21, 2001 at 01:37 PM]
[Edited last by Shayne Lebrun on August 21, 2001 at 01:39 PM]

 

[Chauncey_G]

Just wanted to second your motion about the song-and-dance numbers. I've sort of decided that I'll never see another Disney film again that involves song-and-dance numbers in it (I can do that, I don't have kids ). If you haven't seen it already, check out The Rescuers Down Under. Really good film, George C. Scott is a great villain, and the only music-only bit is an instrumental montage.
Enjoy!

 

[Geoffrey_A]

I, unlike the rest of my fellow animators, didn't care for Atlantis that much. It had potential to be certain, but I felt it was a poorly structured film. The first 20 minutes happens too fast, I felt like there was someone behind me physically pushing me through the first part of the movie to get to the good stuff. Upon arrival at "the good stuff" I found that it was only mediocre stuff. The character design was inconsistent, each character seemingly belonging to a different movie, and the plot was lack lustre. I think the real problem was that disney didn't fully commit to the story. As usual, they felt the need to include the purely comic characters to cater to the kids. What Disney needs to realize is that children will be just as interested in a good adventure story as they will be in a stupid comic relief character, probably more so.
If you're looking for a real triumph of animation and story, you need to see The Iron Giant. Another film that isn't a musical, but packs a much greater emotional punch. This movie doesn't play down to children. It's a finely crafted film, with excellent pacing, acting and design. This is the kind of film Disney should aspire to make.
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Geoff
Now with Kung-Fu grip and realistic facial hair!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I'm not Shayne's kid (I'm Scooter Jolley's son, if anyone knows who he is or is going to our party this weekend). Just thought I would mention that.
I went to see Atlantis with my dad for his birthday since he loves Disney movies and I didn't like this one. It had a pretty dull storyline and drifted from "finding Atlantis" to "saving Atlantis." It had some action that was just thrown in there and the story and plot unfolded pretty slowly and wasn't even that good. I think its nice to have a Disney movie without song and dance (though the songs in Tarzan got really annoying) but it should at least be good. If Disney added some blood or a few dirty words (what else would you put in an action movie?), then maybe this movie would have been better. I wish they would start writing good movies, maybe then kids would grow up on good films and we would have less crap.
I didn't like this movie. I only went since it was his birthday.
And I agree about The Iron Giant. It was a lot better than pretty much every Disney film. Another song-and-dance-less animated film is Titan A.E., but I didn't like it. They used the CGI to say "look what we can do" but it looked bad, so it lost its appeal, plus the movie was just bad.
[Edited last by Morgan Jolley on August 21, 2001 at 09:09 PM]

 

[Troy LaMont]

Shayne,
I also loved this movie. I'm not sure why it wasn't more commercially accepted, but sometimes the best movies don't fair well in theaters.
I was most disappointed to find out that the DVD won't be out until next year!

Troy
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No touchy, No touchy (Kuzco)

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

I'll agree on The Iron Giant, but it's a wee bit too perfectly formulaic. Great stuff, tho. Looking forward to the SE, assuming WB doesn't wonk up.
Another one I love is Prince of Egypt, even though I'm devoutly athiest, and quite against Judeo-Christianity (the man-made church structures, not the belief system itself.) Good animation, good story telling, didn't pull the punches.
Otherwise, it's anime all the way.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I also love anime. I strongly reccommend Princess Mononoke (not really a kiddie film, but its good). Other than that, everything I could reccommend is violent or too...anime-ish.

 

[DaveF]

As a newer-long-time Disney animation fan (I've seen most from the past decade in the theater), I enjoyed Atlantis, but considered it pretty average for Disney. I still consider "The Little Mermaid", "Hunchback of Notre Dame", and "Rescuer's Down Under" my top three.

If you're looking for a real triumph of animation and story, you need to see The Iron Giant.

Getting off topic, but I somewhat disagree. Iron Giant was quite good, and compares well to most Disney animations. But I found the story to be a little light-weight -- that is, it was about as deep as most Disney movies and not the adult powerhouse the reviews led me to expect. And the animation seemed very good, but I didn't end it thinking "triumph."
I also liked that Atlantis had no music. I wish the non-musical animations weren't usually considered lessers to their musical brethren, as I enjoy both equally.

 

[DaveF]

I also love anime. I strongly reccommend Princess Mononoke (not really a kiddie film, but its good). Other than that, everything I could reccommend is violent or too...anime-ish.

If you want to dabble in anime, I whole-heartedly recommend Princess Mononoke, too.
But, this is not a children's movie! It is rated PG-13, and rightfully so. I could imagine it being upsetting to young kids (violence, and some scary scenes). Definitely pre-screen to make sure it's suitable for your 3-yr old.

 

[Edwin-S]

---And I agree about The Iron Giant. It was a lot better than pretty much every Disney film.---
I, respectfully, disagree.
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[Edited last by Edwin-S on August 23, 2001 at 04:12 AM]

 

[Neil Joseph]

No recycled kiddie pablum? Hmmm, sounds interesting already. I have not seen it. I like the mature animated movies that Dreamworks pumps out so based on your description of this one, I may have to check it out when it comes on video. When would that be btw?
orangeman
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