Disney Movie Challenge: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Disney Movie Challenge

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

For some reason this movie is not one many people talk about.  When it first came out I remember it was marketed as a “boys” move. Like Disney was trying to prove it made more than just “Princess” movies.  I also feel like the title with the colon and subtitle made it feel like a sequel to a movie that didn’t exist.  For whatever reason the film didn’t do well when it first came out and feels like most people have forgotten it exists.  Which I find really unfortunate since it’s a good movie.  

The movie centers around Milo (Michael J. Fox), a linguist, who is book smart but lacking people skills.  His grandfather was a great adventurer who had searched for the lost city of Atlantis.  Milo wants to continue his grandfather’s search but no one will fund an expedition.  That is until a mysterious man says he found the lost book that will guide them to Atlantis and they need Milo to translate it.  A team is assembled lead by the gruff Commander Rourke (James Garner) who has ulterior motives.  Eventually the team gets to Atlantis where they meet Princess Kida (Cree Summer). They learn that the Atlantean culture is dying because the King (Leonard Nemoy) refuses to reveal the “Heart of Atlantis''.  Since Kida doesn’t know how to read Atlantian she asks Milo to translate some ancient texts so she can learn how to save her people.  It is then that Milo learns about the Heart of Atlantis and shortly after Commander Rourke reveals that his true intention is to steal the Heart of Atlantis to sell it for lots of money.  Milo knows that if the Heart of Atlantis is stolen everyone in the city will die. He must convince the rest of the crew and the Atlantians to stop Rourke.  

The movie was directed by Gary A. Trousdale and Kirk Wise who had previously done Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Moving away from the Musical format they wanted to do an action adventure movie.  They also took inspiration for the look of the film from comic books and hired Mike Mignola (Hellboy) to be part of the production design.  Famous linguist Marc Okrand was brought in to create the Atlantean language.  He had previously created the Klingon language for Star Trek. At the time this was also the most CG used in a hand drawn animation film.  The amount of thought and craft put into the film should have made it a must see film.  But, the  different direction from previous Disney films coupled with fully computer animated films taking over the animation landscape severely hurt the reception of this movie (didn’t help that it came out about a month after the juggernaut computer animated Shrek). And like I mentioned before the marketing of the movie wasn’t very good.  After a decade of producing hit musicals audiences just wanted more of the same. 

Maybe it’s because I love action adventure movies and it’s been 20 years since it’s release and a lot of the baggage surrounding the film has gone away, but I really enjoyed this film.  They set out to make a Jules Verne like action film and I think they succeeded.  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was one of my favorite Disney films growing up and Around the World in 80 Days was one of my favorite books.  So a Jules Verneesque film is my sweet spot.  I thought it was a fun movie with great characters.  There was some great banter back and forth between the characters which I loved, and the cast was perfect.  The score by James Newton Howard (his second film for Disney) was really good.  That’s not to say it’s a great movie.  The mythology of Atlantis and what the “Heart of Atlantis” and crystals  actually do is very convoluted and confusing.  Rumor has it that the original script was 155 pages.  So a lot of story was cut out which maybe could have helped clear things up.  But no one wants a 2 plus hour animated film.  What they did leave was a quick paced film that hit most of the action beats.  

Overall: A fun action movie that doesn’t do a great job of explaining the world it’s creating.  There is a bit more death in this film than one would normally expect in a Disney film but fits with the action genre.    

Random Facts:

While Disney had played in the realm of Fantasy this would be Disney’s first Sci-Fi film. 

Jim Varney’s final role. He played the check “Cookie” in the film.  He died in 2000 prior to the film being finished and never got to see the film. 

After the disappointing reaction to both The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Atlantis: The Lost Empire Gary A. Trousdale and Kirk Wise would never direct another animated feature film. This despite directing the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar with Beauty and the Beast.

A Beautiful Mind

In the First Academy Awards post 9/11 the inspirational true story A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture against some stiff competition from Moulin Rouge and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. 2001 also was a big year for black actors. It was the first time a black actress won Best Actress (Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball) ,the first time that two black actors were nominated for Best Actor (Denzel Washington for Training Day and Will Smith for Ali), and the first time Best Actor and Best Actress were both black (Berry and Washington both won). Also an honorary award was given to Sidney Poitier for his various performances in during his career.


A Beautiful Mind is about the life of Nobel Prize winner mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe). It starts with Nash attending Princeton University where he obsesses over coming up with a truly original idea and skips most of his classes because he feels that he will learn nothing original. When he finally does come up with his original idea it is revolutionary and opens a lot of doors for him. After getting a teaching job at M.I.T. he starts doing some work with the military deciphering codes and becomes increasingly paranoid about a Russian invasion. Then he meets a beautiful student in his class Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) who would become his wife. As his behavior becomes more bizarre she has him checked out by a psychiatrist where we learn that he has been having hallucinations and created his own fantasy world. He struggles with what is real and imaginary and tries to get some sort of life back. Frustrated with the medication they gave him because it makes his mind foggy he goes off the medication and starts having hallucinations again. He finally moves back to Princeton and finds some comfort being in familiar surroundings. It is here that he learns that his original idea he was working so hard on has become very useful and he was selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.

The movie ultimately won 4 awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. I loved that you don’t know who is real and who is imaginary till half way through and it took me by surprise. Then to watch him struggle and cope was very inspirational. It was incredibly well acted and is Russell Crowes best performance in my opinion. I think if he didn’t win the year before for his weaker performance in Gladiator he would have had a chance to win (it was his third Best Actor nomination in a row only the second person to do that). Besides Crowe and Connelly I was most impressed by Ed Harris and Paul Bettany as Nash’s hallucinations and should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actors. There was a lot of controversy around awards time about the movie saying they glossed over his life and struggles but in the end it didn’t matter and it still won.

A lot of people still ask how it beat Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for Best Picture and I think it has to do with a couple of things. First after 9/11 people were looking for inspiration and a feel good movie and this movie provided both. A movie about a guy who overcomes tremendous obstacles was moving. Second The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had no ending. I know it was only the first part of a trilogy but it kind of has an anticlimactic end. And when taken by itself in its original 3 hour run time it was kind of confusing if you don’t already know some of the story. Characters just show up and are not really introduced. The first time I saw the movie I didn’t know Gimli was a Dwarf till about half way through. After seeing some of the deleted scened and the extended versions the movie makes a little more sense but going from the theatrical version that was released that year I don’t think it should have won.

The other movie that got a lot of attention that year was Moulin Rouge which you either liked or hated. And I fall into the latter category. I found the movie just silly and hard to take serious with all the modern day songs being sung in the early 1900’s.

In my opinion two movies that should have been nominated for Best Picture that got overlooked were Black Hawk Down and Memento. Black Hawk Down did get a nomination for Best Director but didn’t get one for Best Picture. I think that is partly due to the violent nature of the movie and being so close to 9/11. But it was a great action and intense movie. Memento was a truly original movie that should have at least won Best Picture. I think it was a crime that something so original lost Best Original Screenplay to Gosford Park, but Christopher Nolan was an unknown and Robert Altman was a legend.

Oscar Facts
Russell Crowe’s Third Best Actor Nomination in a Row

It was also the first year that they had a Best Animated Feature Oscar which was won by Shrek beating Monsters Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

IMDB Top 250 for 2001
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring- #17
Memento- #31
Donnie Darko-145
A Beautiful Mind-243
Monsters Inc. - 247