Atlantis is very much a lesser Disney effort, but bizarrely prescient. In many ways, it’s a proto-Avatar, in its narrative of colonial capitalist exploitation and a ragtag group of the colonising force joining sides with the natives; lead baddie Rourke (James Garner) even has the same vest top as Stephen Lang’s villain in Avatar. Perhaps more surprisingly, it’s a rare Disney animation that not only has no songs, but also features a mortality rate in line with more grown-up action-adventure blockbusters. It’s an odd film, but with much of interest.
Milo (Michael J. Fox) is a full-on Mary Sue. An orphan raised by his archaeologist granddad, his only ambition is to discover Atlantis. Happily, in the course of his journey, he turns out to be not only a prodigious linguist (to be fair, he at least trained in this), able to speak and teach a language he’s never heard, but also to be an Olympic-level swimmer, rock climber, pilot, military strategist, lover and carver of runes. He’s a skinny geek who wants to do the right thing, and in doing so, he embodies the traditional white saviour narrative – the colonial figure who is able to teach the natives their own culture and lead them to safety.
Picked up by philanthropist Preston Whitmore (John Mahoney) in 1914, Milo is put on an enormous submarine with a motley crew of suspiciously heavily armed explorers. After battling their way past giant robot guards, they eventually find their way to the city of Atlantis, famed for having a power source that allowed the ancient Atlanteans to run electricity and even have flight millennia before the rest of humankind. Milo is there to learn; inevitably, of course, the mercenaries (led by Rourke) are there for the money, and it’s left to Milo to save the locals.
The interesting spin on this is that the power source has given Atlanteans extraordinary longevity, but in the thousands of years that the city has been lying on the bottom of the ocean after escaping a tidal wave, they have forgotten how to read their own language or use their power crystals to fuel their weapons, so their society is in fast decline. Princess Kida (Cree Summer) is at odds with her father (Leonard Nimoy) and wants to welcome the new arrivals, but the King knows what outsiders are like. It adds an element of tension, but unfortunately leads to the deeply patronising scenes in which Milo ‘splains Kida’s culture to her.
One of the film’s writers was Joss Whedon, and whether he was directly responsible for it or not, there’s a strong Whedonesque chosen-one/sacrificial woman vibe going on. In the film’s prologue, we see Kida’s mother being sucked up into the crystals that protect the city to fuel the city’s forcefield; when Milo and Kida are taken prisoner by Rourke, the same thing happens to Kida, and she turns into a glowing blue version of herself a la Michael Jackson’s final transformation in Moonwalker. Rourke steals the crystalline Kida, and it’s left to Milo to rally the other members of the crew who have gotten cold feet about their mission to rescue her. The final sequence is well-rendered, albeit at times so fast that it’s hard to follow a narrative. It’s also surprisingly bloody, with some quite scary deaths and machine gun fire going off everywhere, in a clear homage to the Indiana Jones films. Combined with the mysticism of the crystals, it’s an odd tonal mix, albeit often exciting.
The tonal mix is added to by the very broad comedy of the ethnically and nationally diverse mix of sidekicks created for Milo, including the totally bizarre Mole (Corey Burton), a French lecher with questionable hygiene; sassy teenage mechanic Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors); Vinny (Don Novello), who just wants to open a flower shop; the enormous Dwayne Johnson-a-like Dr Sweet (Phil Morris); chain-smoking Mrs Packard (Florence Stanley); and Kentucky geezer Cookie (Jim Varney). Along with femme fatale baddie Helga (Claudia Christian), the ensemble shift wildly from broad cartoon slapstick to surprisingly serious action, and the film’s climax switches to religious awe as Kida emerges from her dormant state and raises ancient guardians to protect the city from an erupting volcano. There’s some beautiful world-building and fun storytelling; in the end, however, the film just isn’t entirely sure what kind of film it wants to be.
Come To The Pedlar 
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