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Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Walt Disney Pictures


8.0

based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 47 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

GAMES:

PC Game

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

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...

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

A thrilling tale smartly told, with an abundance of wit and invention. It's a classic.

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

A monumental treat as well as a crafty assemblage of mythologies.

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."

Miami Herald Christine Dolen

A crackling good adventure, a visually sumptuous effort.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Enough flair and conviction to keep the movie buoyant even when its plot is abrupt and its emotionality conventional.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Visually imaginative and even persuasively spiritual.

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

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?

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.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

What Atlantis gains in chills and thrills, it loses in pure emotion.

Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)

A tedious let-down that will bore adults and only mildly amuse children.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Qualifies as a pleasant time-killer, but it's 20,000 leagues beneath what it might have been.

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.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Has the comfortable, old-fashioned, earnest idealism of a '50s Disney action-adventure.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

The eye candy can't quite compensate for the murky mess of a plot.

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

For the most part, the movie's a bland disappointment, on many levels.

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."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A frantic, heartless hodgepodge of pieces from James Bond movies, Indiana Jones adventures, "Star Wars" and half a dozen legends.

Village Voice Ed Park

The bulk of the Atlantis scenes in situ are as involving as a chakra workshop.

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."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Doesn't seem geared to kids at all: It's so adult that it's massively boring.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 47 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.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire Walt Disney Pictures

Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Walt Disney Pictures