Atlantis: Milo's Return

Some basic info: I am 21 and decided to watch this movie with my girlfriend out of nostalgia for the original Atlantis I watched as a kid. While I love watching the characters doing what they do, the story line had very little to do with the original and actually broke away entirely from the story line and the ending of the original (which did not make any sense). The animation was not nearly as good as the original and the characters, outfits, and scenery were much more poorly drawn. When watching this movie, I felt as though I was watching Scooby Doo. The illustrations and animations were comparable and the way the entire movie is laid out was exactly the same as watching several episodes of ScoobyDoo (for those who do not know, it was about a mystery solving group of friends). This all being said. If you watched the original, do not watch this movie for it will absolutely kill the story line for you. I mean, if you're too young to be a critic, by all means go watch it. But if you older and looking to relive good old movie, do yourself a favor and pass.

I loved Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It wasn't Disney best Movie ever made but it's Handdrawn (and part CG) Animation was stunning, I would call it Disney best looking Animated Movie. It's Characters were more mature and darker and so was it's Story. That's why it's one of my favorite Disney Movies. Atlantis - Milo's Return takes everything we liked about the first Movie and smashes it. The Animation is awful, the Characters are Parodies of themselves and the Story is so lazy written it's unbelievable. The first thing we see is Queen Kida flying over a Sea of Magma, in which Animals are Swimming. There are Animals SWIMMING in MAGMA, 100 Seconds into this and the Movie already lost me. And it didn't get uphill from there. The Team from the first Movie visits Milo and Kida, to ask them for help dealing with a Sea Monster called the Kraken. So our Heroes travel to Norway to slay the Kraken and about 20 Minutes later they Win. And that Point you realize instead of one long Story they crammed three Incredible Bad Stories into this. It feels More like a Pilot for an Atlantis: The Lost Empire TV-Show, a bad TV-Show. The other annoying Part is the Characters. They got almost everything about those Characters wrong, as if they did't see the first movie. Vinnie for instance, he was the funniest Character in the first movie. I liked his dry sense of Humor and some great lines like:"But, nobody got hurt. Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but nobody we knew." He's not nearly as funny now. You can see they tried to target the Younger Kids with this. To me this Movie was was just a massive waste of Time, Money and Electricity. 70 Minutes of my life i'll never get back.

What an awful sequel! I've had my fairy share of bad sequels, but I mean this one just topped them all! Within the first few seconds I just knew it wasn't going to be good. Yanno, I decided to put it on after I watched the first one the night before mainly out of curiosity. And I regret that decision now. The script was sub par, full of one liners and an excess of slap stick humor. The plot itself was pretty weak, I understood it perfectly well, but the story didn't unfold as nicely. The animation was cheap, stiff, and not as nearly expressive as its predecessor. I feel like this movie wasn't taken as seriously as the first. It was like watching a marathon of bad scooby doo movies! Not to mention the female characters are significantly weakened. Remember how awesome Kida was? Kicking butt and also being a rad princess at the same time? Yeah no, not in this one because of course the guys had to come and save the day. The reason so many people love the first movie is because of its diverse characters and interesting story! Lets not forget the beautiful artwork, expressive animation, and fantastic diversity between all the characters. This movie way obviously a way to make a quick and easy buck off of the public. If you have any appreciation for the first film, just watch the first one and steer clear of this catastrophe of a movie.

I am finding that I get less and less excited about Disney's sequels to movies. Yes, I do understand that the budget for the direct to video movies are not the same, but these movies don't even try. Some examples are Hunchback II and Tarzan and Jane. If anyone has seen the previews for Stitch-The Movie, you will see my point. But I digress, this movie reaffirms my point. The animation is sloppy, the story lines resemble Saturday morning cartoons, and not all of the original voices are there. I was very disappointed not to hear Michael J. Fox's voice. It was so glaringly obvious that the person doing Milo's voice was trying to sound like Fox, but didn't come close to succeeding. If it says anything, my children ages 10 and 6 didn't even sit through the whole movie.

I was really interested in seeing more of the Atlantis universe. This "movie" is clearly three episodes of the cancelled TV show and it shows quite painfully. It just made me wish for the actual TV show and see more episodes. Each part of the movie is based on a different mythology and they combined their research with good visuals. This raises some potential cultural issues with the hyperdiffusionist theme but nobody really watched this anyway.