...there’s not a lot we haven’t seen before and not a lot that actually comes to life for us.
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With all the huzzahs and flapdoodle over 3D computer-generated graphics of late, filmmakers may be tempted to overlook the charms of good, old-fashioned line-drawn 2D animation. Disney artists haven´t overlooked it, though, nor have they forsaken their newfangled technological work stations, either. In 2001´s "Atlantis, the Lost Empire," they have it both ways: 2D and 3D, using the former for main characters and much of the land-based action, with a nod to anime, and the latter for much of the underwater seascape, the giant creatures, and the background world of Atlantis. The film´s story may not be much, but the experience of watching and listening to it unfold is some compensation. Then, too, this two-disc Collector´s Edition is also an experience, the bonus items and their presentation among the most absorbing and entertaining I´ve come across in a while. In fact, the behind-the-scenes material may be more rewarding, overall, than the movie itself.
Video and Audio:
The picture and sound are the highlights of the production. The image is presented in a generous 2.13:1 ratio across a normal televisions, enhanced for widescreen playback. The definition is excellent, the outlines of figures and landscapes often spectacularly delineated. The colors, while not as brilliant as in many other animated features, are quite pleasing in their subdued appearance, never overly bright or gaudy. I noticed a small degree of graininess in a few darker areas of the canvas, but it was of little consequence. The audio quality, if anything, is even more impressive than the picture. The listener has the choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1, depending on one´s component capability, and in DD 5.1 it´s nothing short of fabulous. In addition to a dependably wide dynamic range, deep, thunderous bass, and excellent separation of noises in all five-point-one speakers, there is a natural roundness to the sonics that renders them entirely natural. If you´re like me, you probably get tired of the bright audio reproduction needed to convey sounds and voices in a big theater auditorium carried over into the relative intimacy of your living room. I presume the sound here has been re-equalized because it enables more realistic close-up listening, a successful conversion, especially in terms of voices. And while there are none of the usual helicopters in this movie for the filmmakers to show off the capabilities of rear-channel projection, there are plenty of other flying machines, flying insects, and explosions to make their points. The sound of a swarm of fireflies, for instance, helps create one of the more exciting aural sequences in the story.
The Movie:
And then there´s the movie. In spite of our modern electronic wizardry and our technological advancements in animation, movies still need a good story to tell; otherwise, it´s all just flashing lights. One does not, of course, come to many animated features with a high expectation for in-depth plots or characterizations, but one might expect something a little less by-the-book than the standard action movie that "Atlantis" is. The film borrows bits and pieces of other, more-famous adventure stories, apparently in the hope that some of their magic might rub off; mostly, it doesn´t. There´s a little of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" in here, portions of "The Time Machine" and "Jason and the Argonauts," a smidgin of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Young Indiana Jones," and a whole lot of Disney´s own Jules Verne fantasy, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
Unfortunately, there´s not a lot we haven´t seen before and not a lot that actually comes to life for us. It´s kind of a paint-by-the-numbers venture where almost everything that happens is wholly anticipated. Moreover, along the way the movie strives for epic proportions that never materialize, despite the beautiful art work and computer graphics and despite James Newton Howard´s musical track underscoring every plot device with a wealth of swelling crescendos. Fact is that with the exceptions of a few broad vistas of the Atlantean landscape, most of the picture seems too confined, too boxed in, to give it the sweep it needs. Beautiful, yes; epic, no.
The story of Atlantis is based on what little we know of the Atlantean legend from the philosopher Plato. In about 360 B.C., he wrote down what he had heard about the place and its people, supposedly a fabulously advanced civilization living some nine thousand years earlier on an island-continent that lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules, presumably past the Straits of Gibraltar in the Atlantic Ocean. The filmmakers quote from Plato in the movie´s preface: "...in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea."
From there the filmmakers--producer Don Hahn ("The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast"), directors Gary Trousdale ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Beauty and the Beast") and Kirk Wise ("Hunchback" and "Beast"), and scriptwriter Tab Murphy ("Tarzan," "Hunchback")--create a new story line about a young linguist-archeologist searching for the lost empire. These filmmakers have had a good combined track record; this time out, however, they appear to have relied too much on what they´d already done or too much on what Disney executives demanded of them, creating a tame and highly conventional product.
Anyhow, the story is set in 1914 (for no discernible reason except, perhaps, to lend some period atmosphere to the piece) and concerns the exploits of a nerdy young eccentric named Milo Thatcher (voiced by Michael J. Fox as the aforementioned linguist-archeologist), whose explorer grandfather had always told him tales of finding the mythical Atlantis. When a notebook of granddad´s turns up detailing the whereabouts of the lost empire, Milo gets complete funding for an expedition from one of his grandpa´s old pals, a multimillionaire named Preston Whitmore (John Mahoney). Indeed, not only does Whitmore fund the project, he hires an entire crew and builds a special submarine for the journey.
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[release]9411[/release]