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Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Walt Disney Pictures

Atlantis: The Lost Empire reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 52 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.9 out of 10
based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 44 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG for action violence

Starring Michael J. Fox, Jim Varney, Corey Burton, Claudia Christian, James Garner, and John Mahoney

A young adventurer named Milo Thatch (Fox) joins a group of explorers in search of the lost continent of Atlantis.


GENRE(S): Sci-fi  
WRITTEN BY: Tab Murphy
Joss Whedon
Bryce Zabel (story)
Jackie Zabel (story)
 
DIRECTED BY: Gary Trousdale
Kirk Wise
 
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 29, 2002 
Video: January 29, 2002 
Theatrical: June 8, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90
New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
A thrilling tale smartly told, with an abundance of wit and invention. It's a classic.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Rousing in an old pulp science fiction sort of way, but the climactic scene transcends the rest, and stands by itself as one of the great animated action sequences.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times A.O. Scott
A monumental treat as well as a crafty assemblage of mythologies.
Read Full Review
80
Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
A wide-eyed, action-adventure throwback to the era of Disney's magnificent adaptation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
75
Miami Herald Christine Dolen
A crackling good adventure, a visually sumptuous effort.
75
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
A well-told, vividly imagined movie that doesn't pretend to be more than it is and doesn't lean on pop-culture references to win over its viewers.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Wesley Morris
The emphasis here is less on cuteness and romance and more on the "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style adventure.
Read Full Review
75
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Enough flair and conviction to keep the movie buoyant even when its plot is abrupt and its emotionality conventional.
70
TV Guide Frank Lovece
The character designs, however, are much less impressive. Except for the oddly naturalistic Sinclair, the rest look like cartoony characters from one of Disney's '60s films.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Jay Carr
For all its handsomeness, the movie reveals a few cobwebs beginning to gather at the conceptual edges of the Disney animations.
63
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Disney's disappointing Atlantis, sadly, is a lot like much of the studio's recent animated output: eye-popping visuals and great vocal characterizations sunk by a dead-in-the-water script.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan
Unfortunately for Disney, the real obstacle confronting the submarine isn't the giant lobster. It's a foul-smelling ogre, and it's no contest.
60
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Visually imaginative and even persuasively spiritual.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Story line and characterization are decidedly old-fashioned, and a curious decision about production design gives this wide-screen cartoon some of the look and feel of a Saturday morning TV cartoon series
Read Full Review
58
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Has my eye, seduced by the devious and tactile delights of ''Shrek,'' already evolved in tandem with the technological leaps in computer animation? Or is Atlantis simply a Disney dud?
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Grand and imaginatively designed epic that forgets that the spectacle -- and this is nothing if not spectacular -- is just the flourish.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
What Atlantis gains in chills and thrills, it loses in pure emotion.
Read Full Review
50
Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)
A tedious let-down that will bore adults and only mildly amuse children.
Read Full Review
50
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Qualifies as a pleasant time-killer, but it's 20,000 leagues beneath what it might have been.
50
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The idea that every animated feature from Disney is an instant classic officially springs a leak with the noisily disappointing Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Has the comfortable, old-fashioned, earnest idealism of a '50s Disney action-adventure.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
The eye candy can't quite compensate for the murky mess of a plot.
Read Full Review
40
Film.com Sean Means
A fireworks show with plenty of "oohs" but not a lot of "aah" -- the story is needlessly convoluted in places and storybook-simple in others, and the characters never make the leap from drawn figures to flesh-and-blood people.
Read Full Review
40
Washington Post Desson Thomson
For the most part, the movie's a bland disappointment, on many levels.
Read Full Review
40
Variety Todd McCarthy
Recycles familiar adventure and cartoon devices with minimal wit and flair, and the lack of imagination will seem all the more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."
Read Full Review
38
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A frantic, heartless hodgepodge of pieces from James Bond movies, Indiana Jones adventures, "Star Wars" and half a dozen legends.
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Ed Park
The bulk of the Atlantis scenes in situ are as involving as a chakra workshop.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Rita Kempley
The result is cutesy but harsh, a hybrid of saucer-eyed anime and square-jawed angularity that brings to mind an edgier "Pokemon."
Read Full Review
20
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Doesn't seem geared to kids at all: It's so adult that it's massively boring.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Aaron D. gave it a10:
The movie is more teen related, yet I thought it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while.

Die not Easy gave it a10:
This Movie is great!! It's good that there were no songs.

Sonny K. gave it a 10:
It is a movie that sensibly explains a great mystery with a story and a plot.

Brandy W. gave it a 10:
I am a hard core disney fan and this movie is one of my fav's. it's different..that's what is so good about it. the different look fits. and the story line makes you think more...they took this myth/true fact and made it a movie. it made me want to know all about this advanced city of Atlantis. it's awesome!

Layne gave it a 5:
Disney is definitely plunging into dangerous waters. Instead of more glorious films like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, we're stuck with mediocre films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

raVen gave it a 7:
If Walt were still alive and working, he would have made sure we had a more interesting time GETTING to Atlantis. Here the journey is pretty short and (relatively) easy to complete. But once we're there, Atlantis is beautiful enough, the villains evil enough, and the animation just un-CGI enough to bear the Disney name.

Simon D. gave it a 7:
This film boasts some delightful visuals, excellent voice acting by a fine mix of established stars and Disney veterans, and great action sequences. The pot holes, and a cetain amount of new age nonsense, however, are probably what did this in at the box office. A worthy effort by Disney to go beyond the limits of American animation but not enough to make American treat animation as anything but comedy.

Read more user comments...

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