Atlantis: The Lost Empire
2001
If you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you that I am a highly opinionated person. This is probably the reason I have a blog, so I can broadcast my opinion to the entire world! Or whoever happens to be reading this. I just like to think that the whole world is, it makes me feel happy. However, this movie is confusing me, as I have no opinion on it. I don’t understand this new feeling I have encountered.
Milo is a nerd. I mean really, he spends all his time learning dead languages. He lives alone with his cat. No one wants to be his friend, or colleague, or really have much of anything to do with him. This is mainly due to the fact he is obsessed with finding the lost continent of Atlantis, which supposedly sunk many thousand years ago. Everyone just considers him crazy and attempts avoiding him at all cost.
Everyone that is except John Mahoney! Okay, in this movie his character’s name is Whitmore, but whatever, he’s an awesome actor. Anyway, Whitmore was tight buddies with Milo’s grandfather. Whitmore made him a bet that if he could find the Sheppard’s Journal, this map/guide/rule book/history for Atlantis, he would fund a trip to find the lost world, and kiss Milo’s grandpa on the mouth! He didn’t think the book existed you see.
Let’s just say things got slightly awkward for their relationship once he found the book in Iceland.
Sadly, Grandpa died before Whitman could fulfill the other half of his promise. So instead, Milo gets the trip to Atlantis! Woohoo! He’s packed and ready to go within minutes, with a top of the line crew and everything!
This all happens within the first ten minutes or so of film. I think finding this journal, the key to proving Atlantis real, should have been slightly more difficult than it literally being dropped into Milo’s hands. I mean really! A good explorer/scientist/adventurer would have had to spend at least thirty minutes or screen time looking for it. I guess I am starting to form an opinion after all!
Now that he has his dream voyage, disaster of course strikes. The entrance to Atlantis is guarded by a giant mechanical lobster that attempts to chop ships in half with its huge claws. Most of the crew dies from its attacks. It’s refreshing to see a Disney movie kill off hundreds of people. This does not make me a psycho. Shut up!
With the few remaining people left, they finally arrive at Atlantis. At first, the people there find them threatening, but when the princess, Kida, discovers that Milo can speak Atlantian (?) she realizes how useful he would be to her.
Roughly eight thousand years ago, a huge explosion/catastrophe/something happened to Atlantis that made it sink. Once it sunk, people lost a lot of their technology and forgot how to read the old language. This was a part of the movie I don’t understand. First of all, Kida has been around those 8,000 years, because they all live extremely long lives due to magic crystals. So shouldn’t they remember the language? Maybe I missed something, or Atlatians could just be morons. You never know.
Since Milo knows how to read this ancient language, Kida takes him underwater to read a mural. The mural states that all the people and the city is alive due to the Heart of Atlantis, a god type power. Sometimes it eats a random royal family member when it gets angry, like Kida’s mom. Why it does this, is very confusing. Maybe every few millennia it gets hungry.
Now that they know what the mural says, they return to the others. Of course, all of Milo’s crew has gone bad, and they want to steal the Heart and use it as a power source. First they have to locate it. Once they do, they all discover that the Heart is a weird glowing orb of energy. The orb absorbs Kida, for reasons I do not understand. All I know is that it is bad when it does that.
Well it sort of absorbs her. A more accurate thing to say would be that she absorbed it, and now is blue and stone like. The crew tries to take her back to America, but they fail, as most of the crew decides to grow a conscience and not steal the life force of a civilization. Good for them!
Two bad guys still remain, but they are quickly taken care of, and Kida is safely restored, as is the Heart. Milo decides to stay back in Atlantis, and the crew returned home laden with treasure from happy Atlantians. So everyone is fairly happy, probably forever, and it ends.
I still don’t know what to think. On the one hand, it was entertaining. It had enough action to keep me engaged for the full length. On the other hand it was just, meh. It wasn’t that special. I hardly remember most of it, and I only watched it a few hours ago. But it wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t necessarily good. I hate not knowing what I think.
Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): Now that my parents are home, hopefully I can start watching these movies with people again. I hate having to watch movies alone, like I had to do today. Sniffle.
Best Song: None! Boo!
Best Part: The guy who owned a flower shop, then decided blowing things up was a better career idea. Talk about a drastic change.
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