ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE
Copyright © 2001 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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Atlantis
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In a summer that seems to be an ongoing festival of animation, the grand
old mouse of animation, Walt Disney Pictures (for which I have little love)
comes through with Atlantis, a surprising romp that goes back to an
earlier Disney style, the pre-Elton-John period, when the animals may have
talked (they don’t in the current venture), but the songs were few.
Maybe I should quit trying to second-guess what children will like, but I
can say that Atlantis works for this adult.
Perhaps parents need to know that there are some deaths, nothing
excessive, but, deaths nonetheless, even of some sympathetic characters.
I’m not sure about this, but it seems that there are some lines that
will go right over the kids’ heads—not the kind of bathroom humor that gets
labeled “adult,” but richly textured cultural references that may slip
by some adults, including this one. There
is even a strand of New-Age-y philosophy involving mysterious powers in the
mysterious city.
I especially enjoy the clunky 1914 technology, which seems just right for
the proceedings, a quest for the lost city of Atlantis led by a rather
unworldly intellectual, Milo (Michael J. Fox), aided by an equally unworldly
millionaire and a colorful cast of adventurers and professors, women and men, of
all kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities.
Forgive me for spoiling the suspense, but the crew reaches Atlantis,
under the rule of King Leonard Nimoy who has a beautiful daughter (Cree Summer),
who happens to fall in love with… oops.
Well, this is a Disney film, so surely you have guessed by now
that the nubile marine maiden falls for the upper-world dork.
But, all is not sunny in the sunless depths; some of the crew see
Atlantis as a resource to be exploited.
What a crew it is! How about
a deceptively amiable James Garner as the commander, Don Novella (better known
as Father Guido Sarducci) as an explosive explosives expert, and Jim Varney as
the cook (which will be his last role). Atlantis
moves along as briskly within the quirky submarine as it does in the weirdly
imaginative submarine (literally, beneath the sea) city.
In fact, its hundred minutes or so speed by, with constant twists of plot
and character revelation. I really
had to pay attention to keep up with everything that was going on with the rich
plot and flow of images. This is
one ocean adventure that is not all wet.