Atlantis: Milo's Return
Atlantis: Milo's Return is a 2003 American animated anthology science fiction film, made of unused TV episodes, directed by Victor Cook, Toby Shelton, and Tad Stones. It is the sequel to Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). The film received a direct-to-video release on May 20, 2003.
Originally, Disney was developing a sequel titled Shards of Chaos, but it was abandoned once The Lost Empire was less successful than anticipated. The released sequel consists of three segments, which are "Kraken", "Spirit of the West" and "Spear of Destiny". They were originally meant to be episodes of a series that was never completed called Team Atlantis. Some additional animation was done to link the stories more closely.
Cree Summer (Kida), Corey Burton (Mole), Don Novello (Vinny), Phil Morris (Dr. Sweet), Jacqueline Obradors (Audrey), John Mahoney (Mr. Whitmore), and Florence Stanley (Mrs. Packard) all reprise their roles from the first film, with James Arnold Taylor replacing Michael J. Fox as Milo and Steve Barr replacing Jim Varney, who died before the first film finished production, as Cookie. This is Stanley's final film; she died months after production ended.
Plot
After the decline in Atlantean culture following the sinking, Kida, now queen and married to Milo Thatch (after deciding to stay in Atlantis), are using the heart of Atlantis to restore the city's former glory. Milo's comrades and Mr. Whitmore arrive in Atlantis; while their arrival is unexpected, the Atlanteans welcome their old friends back into the city. Unfortunately, they have come to inform them of a mysterious creature causing trouble on the surface. Kida suspects that the creature might be Atlantean, stirring mixed feelings about her father's decision to keep the Crystal hidden.
They arrive in Trondheim, Norway and discover that the mysterious problem is actually the creature known as the Kraken, which had been attacking shipping freighters and taking their cargo to a cliffside village. At first they presume it to be an ancient Atlantean war machine gone rogue (like the Leviathan from the previous film), but they discover that the town magistrate, Edgar Volgud, seems to be controlling the Kraken. They soon learn, though, that the Kraken itself is the master, having made a deal with Volgud to preserve the life of the town and Edgar's lifespan in exchange for their souls. When they blow up the Kraken, Volgud's immortality ceases and he disintegrates, while the spirit of the village is restored.
All the while, Kida is learning about the outside world and is adapting well. However, she still feels guilty, as there could still be other Atlantean war machines in the world causing problems, like the Leviathan. Their next mystery is in the Southwestern United States, involving coyote spirits opposing them. They later find a hidden city in Arizona that contains Atlantean architecture, which Kida realizes is an abandoned Atlantean colony. Unfortunately, a very sly shop owner, Ashtin Carnaby, intends to pillage the place for its valuables, but the spirits then turn him into one of them. A mysterious man named Chakashi, who is a Native American wind spirit, trusts them with the knowledge of their sanctuary and informs Kida that she can choose Atlantis' destiny.
Returning home, the adventurers discover that one of Whitmore's old competitors, Erik Hellstrom, who, after the stock market crash sank his company, went insane believing he was Odin, the Norse king of the gods, broke in at night and stole one of Whitmore's possessions, an ancient spear called the Gungnir, an artifact of Atlantean origin. When they track him down in the frigid Nordic Mountains, he presumes Milo to be the God of Mischief, Loki, and Kida to be his long lost daughter, Brünnhilde. Then, "Odin" uses the spear to cast Milo, Mole, Vinny and Audrey out of "Asgard" before kidnapping Kida and dressing her in Norse clothing. He explains that his intentions are to end the world in Ragnarok, the prophesied apocalypse told in Norse mythology. He creates a lava beast and an ice beast to destroy the world, but well-placed explosives used by Vinny distract the monsters long enough for Kida to retrieve the spear and vanquish the beasts. During these escapades, Kida comes into a greater understanding of just how powerful the Atlantean Crystal is, and that she must choose between hiding it and sharing it with the rest of mankind.
Having retrieved the spear, Kida realizes her father was wrong to hide the Crystal from mankind. She combines the Spear with the Heart Crystal and lifts Atlantis above water. Fishermen are shocked at seeing the entire city rise before them. With Atlantis above the water for the first time in over 8,000 years, Mr. Whitmore narrates that from then on, the world was a better place.
Why Milo Didn't Have A Return (In A Bad Way)
- Noticeably cheap and low-quality animation (although, this could be explained by the fact that it was meant to be for a TV show rather than an actual movie). It looks downright silly and goofy at times (and not in a good way either).
- Similar to Belle's Magical World, the entire film wasn't actually meant to be an actual sequel to the original movie, but the pilot for an Atlantis TV show than ended up cancelled, and the episodes were therefor thrown together and released as a movie. As a result, the pacing is horrendous as the movie just keeps switching from one scenario to another (none of them connecting, by the way).
- Speaking of the film being portioned into segments, the plots for each one is incredibly uninteresting. As they just focus on the Atlantis cast solving mysteries around the world in a similar vain to Scooby-Doo. And while the concept could've been executed-well, that wasn't the case here. Because as previously mentioned, the situations all came off as bland and boring.
- The stories aren't just boring more often than not, but they'll often dump events that seem fascinating in favor of more uninteresting and boring ones. For example, the first one focused on a kraken-like creature destroying ships in Norway. And just as the story was starting to pick up, it then ended and the setting switched to Arizona, and the tension and excitement took a massive nosedive.
- While most of the voice actors from the original film reprise their roles here, some don't. As here, Michael J. Fox (Milo) and Jim Varney (Cookie) are replaced James Arnold Taylor and Steven Barr respectively. The thing is, while the voice acting is technically okay, they don't bring the charm that they had in the original film here, especially the former of which (although to be fair, the replacement was due to budgetary reasons).
- Misleading Title: In spite of having Atlantis in the title, almost none of the film takes place there. Instead, each segment takes place in a different part of the world.
- The ending (where Kida combines the Spear with the Heart Crystal and lifts Atlantis above water for the first time in 9,000 years) is technically a decent one, but not only does it retcon the events of the previous film, but while Kida's choice is understandable, there's still the fact that there were numerous dangers that occur in the film that go against her reasoning to make the choice. Her choice was a good one, but the dangers that could come along with it are never further explored nor explained.
Good Qualities
- The voice acting is still alright, especially given how many of the original voice actors return here.
- As previously mentioned (in BQ# 3), the concept of the cast travelling across the world to solve mysteries isn't a bad one, even if it was poorly executed.
- The characters are mainly faithful to the original incarnations, so at least they aren't flanderized/dumped on unlike some other Disney sequels.
- In spite of the issues with the ending, Kida's decision was still pretty understandable.