Atlantis: El regreso de Milo

What the (beep) is going wrong with Disney the last years? Are there totally run out of good ideas? Where is the magic? Where are the good animators, the good songwriters, the good directors, the good... Okay, i know, Walt himself and the famous "nine old man" can't come back. But is this a reason to crank out countless of those cheap sequels and slowly but surely destroying the ideals of Walt Disney? I never rent or bought a Disney-sequel of what movie however. Because i had read much enough about its (absence of) quality. But "Atlantis: Milo's Return" was aired today on TV in Germany and so i watch it. It confirmed my doubts about sequels. It was absolutely boring. Flaw animation, primitive color-rotation, simple characters, some unsuccessful tries to simulate the famous Multiplane-Camera with CGI, mediocre music and a patchwork of different, simple stories. It looks absolutely not like Disney! Not like Disney i know! It looks like one of the countless, cheap and simple animation-series like "DragonballZ", "Beyblade" etc. that aired every day on TV for children.

My first reaction after showing this crap, was to load "Bambi" in my DVD-Player, to see Disney's immortal magic, depth, spirit and charm again, to see Disney on its climax again, to see the awesome art of handmade animation again. "Bambi" was the first (and until today the only) movie that i give 10 out of 10 stars. But "Atlantis: Milo's Return"? No magic, no depth, no charm, no spirit... It deserved only 3 out of 10!

I will not say much about this film, because there is not much to say, because there is not much there to talk about. The only good thing about this movie is that our favorite characters from "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" are back. Several of the bad things about this movie are that it has horrible characters, it has horrible comedy, horrible animation, and James Arnold Taylor trying to copy the wonderful, one and only Michael J. Fox as Milo James Thatch. The reasons for my criticisms are that all the characters are changed into something that they never were, and never should be, animation that has been downgraded to the lowest extent possible, and finally, why would somebody who did wonderful voice-over work for Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Clone Wars" want to copy Michael J. Fox? I happen to have an answer to this. Because they are the same person who thought he had to copy Eddie Murphy from Mulan in Mulan II. Yes, sadly, it is true.

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Where's the touch of magic Disney studio's used to have with every movie they made? I don't know. If you know, tell me! New movies like Nemo still reach the public, but even there I see a constant repeating of things I have seen in movies before. In every Disney/Pixar movie they seem to need to show toys laying around from Toy Story. And every new movie has the repeating thing of Simba in The Lion KIng. As for the video's and all the sequels, this is the last one I have bought. All these numbers II, I will ignore from now on when I walk through the store.

Milo's return is nothing more than 3 short stories, which misses the charm of the first movie Atlantis. The only reason to make such sequels seems to me to get some money easily out of the pockets of ignorant parents who are willing to buy anything 'disney' for their spoiled kids, without even thinking about quality. Why is Disney leaving the 'yellow brick road' they were walking on? There are numerous stories around the world that have the magic Disney used to bring to us in it's classics.

I will always be a Disneyfan in heart and soul, but at the moment it only means that I play the old classics over and over again, eagerly waiting for the day that Disney 'comes back to it's senses' instead of bringing us such bad sequels as 'Pocahontas II', 'Hunchback of Notre Dame II' and 'Cinderella II'.

Sometimes people should wonder whether there are two Disney corporations. There's the Disney that moviegoers love and that consists of the classic titles that revolutionized the way people saw family and children films. Then there's the other side of Disney where it acts as a sellout / cash cow that churns out Direct-to-DVD sequels of their various popular films. Most of which these particular sequels either nobody asks for or just end up being despised by fans of the original. It makes no sense how such a well- respected company could have such split personality in goals. This is not to say that all of their DVD sequels are terribly made but to some, it would seem the mouse house operates solely on monetary impulse. The other odd thing is when sequels are produced to films that didn't even perform well. Of the early 2000's, Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) was one of them. Originally its sequel was for a TV series but was scrapped. Thus, this sequel feels more episodic in storytelling than a movie.

Directed Victor Cook, Tad Stones and Toby Shelton (who have all worked on various Disney DVD sequels) and penned by six writers from various TV shows and genres, this sequel is okay but that's all that it is. Although the title suggests it's "Milo's return", the story is actually about Milo's original crew having him come back to the surface in order to understand and resolve strange occurrences happening with no reason in the country. Kida's thoughts are that they are somehow connected to Atlantis; once weapons of destruction that her father had locked away hoping modern day man would not find. These events in question are that of a small town being terrorized by a deep sea kraken, a dust storm of spirit wolves and a mad man looking to start the end of the world. Of these separate cases, none of them truly give any explanation to how their Atlantian connection affected history. They're really just lazy tie- ins with Atlantis and nothing more.

The voice cast behind the characters thankfully help make the viewing relatively tolerable. There's only a few replacements; for Milo, James Arnold Taylor takes over Michael J. Fox and instead of Jim Varney, Steven Barr fills in as Cookie. Every other character remains the same. Cree Summer, John Mahoney, Jacqueline Obradors, Don Novello, Corey Burton, Phil Morris and Florence Stanley all return to reprise their roles and their exchanges are still commendable as the slew of personalities they make up. There are additional voices too and they consist of Frank Welker playing Obby (a three legged volcano dog,...precious), Jeff Bennett, William Morgan Sheppard, Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman, Thomas F. Wilson and Clancy Brown. The unfortunate part is that with these new additions, somehow not all the main characters make it into every story. Characters like Vinny and Sweet disappear at times with no notice and don't come back until another story finishes. Strange.

Another component to the writing that doesn't exactly make sense are some of the character motivations. Some of which these motivations completely contradict beliefs from the prior movie. It's another thing to also think that sharing the gift of Atlantis will bring about good and everyone will be accepting of it. If this were a real world event, the newbies to the world should think twice. Animation was handled by Toon City, a contracting company that has frequently worked with Disney in several animated TV show spinoffs and direct- to-DVD sequels. For what it's worth, the animation is nowhere close to its predecessor's quality but it isn't garbage either. There are few relaxed scenes that have some decent fluidity to them and the action scenes are engaging too. For the action there are explosions and various other character movements (kraken, dust storms or protagonists) that have natural movement to them. The difference in quality to this is more texture display than anything else.

Of the animation, if there's one thing that really stands out, it's all the continuity errors that litter the screen. There are a considerable number moments when these problems develop. Parts of it show up for certain sections of backgrounds, while other times it's as simple as animating characters' mouths when clearly there's voice over work being played. It's moments like those that just feel sloppy and cheap. Also when Milo's friends come back to Atlantis, they arrive via plane. However the first movie had everyone go underwater; great job guys. The music to this feature is adequate though. Don Harper, who normally is the conductor to score recording sessions and who's best work would come later in The Lion King 1 1/2 (2004), composed the music. Occasionally, Harper does reference James Newton Howard's theme from the original but it's not around for long. The music itself is also not as grand but this is probably due to the constraints of the budget itself. It's just okay.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) was one of those Disney films that didn't need a sequel. Is this worth any of your time - not really but it's not a total disgrace either. The music, most of its animation, and voice acting is praise worthy. Its weak plot threads are more of the problem.

My main criticism with the movie is the animation. I totally agree with everyone else it was very poor. Some of the characters seemed to have darker skin tones than they did in the first film, which is much better. Also the background colours looked rushed and somewhat static. It is also a shame that Michael J.Fox didn't voice Milo, he did such a good job, and James Arnold Taylor wasn't sure whether he was supposed to sound like Milo or Aladdin. I have also taken into consideration the lack of a good storyline. the third story was confusing and clumsily told, and the second story suffered from poor scripting. To make things worse, the first one I can't even remember, other than a fishing village being haunted or something like that. However, there was some nice music, and good voice talents from John Mahoney, Cree Summer, Clancy Brown and Tom Wilson, that saved the film from total disaster. All in all, a disappointing sequel to a surprisingly good film. 4/10 Bethany Cox.