Atlantis: Milo's Return

Atlantis: Milo's Return (also known as Atlantis 2: Milo's Return) is a 2003 American animated science-fiction film produced by DisneyToon Studios, and a sequel to the 2001 animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

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 animated adventures, originally meant to be three episodes of a series that was never completed called Team Atlantis. Some additional animation was done to link the stories more closely.

Plot
After the decline in Atlantean culture following the sinking, Kida (Kidagakash), now Queen, and married to Milo Thatch, now a king, was using the heart of Atlantis to restore her city's former glory. Though the evil Rourke is gone, more dangers would be under way, during the upcoming missions. Milo's comrades and Mr. Whitmore arrived in Atlantis; while their arrival was unexpected the Atlanteans welcomed their old friends. Unfortunately, they had come to inform them of mysterious forces causing trouble on the surface. At first they presumed it to be an ancient Atlantean defense mechanism gone rogue (like the Leviathan from the previous film, although it remained loyal). When they arrived at Norway, their cargo ship gets heavily damaged by the creature, though the group managed to escape in their Sub Pods. After reaching the surface and coming across a cliffside village covered in fog, they are greeted by the town's magistrate, Edgar Vulgud, who tells them that their damaged ship will be repaired at Trondheim and that a driver will take the group there first thing next morning, allowing them to stay the night in the local inn. After meeting the innkeeper, Inger Allyson, she tells them a bit about the day Vulgud made a "deal with the devil", where he asked for immortality, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. She then tells the group to stay clear of Vulgud and to leave while they still can. Later that night, Milo and the group try to follow Vulgud, only to get lost in the fog. When Milo spots what he thinks is the village lights, they end up going over a cliff, though the group was able to gling on to parts of the cliff except Audrey, who gets stuck further down in the cliff. When Milo climbs down to Audrey, he reaches out for her hand. When Audrey realizes they’re not close enough, she decides to jump up to Milo (against his warnings). She manages to catch Milo's hand, but her hand slips out of her glove and she falls, only to be saved by Mole. The next day, Vulgud appears in front of Inger in the inn, telling her to gather the group's possessions and destroy them. Milo and the group appear behind Vulgud, much to his surprise. After he leaves, Milo asks Inger for more details about Vulgud’s deal. She explains that years ago, the fish left the nearby seas and that her village was on the brink of death. Vulgud later struck a deal with a creature called the Krakken. After that, people weren’t allowed to leave their homes, their spirits were lost and the village was covered in fog. Later that day, the group decide to investigate the shores for a secret entrance, which Mole later discovers. After entering the cave, they see Vulgud with the Krakken, leading to the group assuming that Vulgud is the master, commanding the Krakken to destroy cargo ships containing supplies to give to the village. After seeing Audrey walk towards the monster in a hypnotised state, they stop Vulgud, only to notice the Krakken didn't stop. After saving Audrey, the group return to their sub pods to fight the monster underwater in its lair. During the battle, the group realizes that the Krakken was the real master after Vinnie gets possessed, though Mole was able to knock him out of it with a wrench. After a few failed attempts, they blow up the Krakken, causing Vulgud to disintegrate and the spirit of the village to be restored and the fog to disappear. Milo said it's up to people like Inger to raise their little ones in peace. (A deleted scene shows that Inger's child had Krakken tentacles, implying it's not over.)

All the while, Kida was learning about the outside world and is adapting well. However, she still felt guilty, as there could still be other Atlantean war machines in the world causing problems, like the Leviathan. Their next mystery was in the Southwest, involving coyote spirits opposing them. They later found a hidden city in Arizona contains a statue that greatly resembles Atlantean architecture. Unfortunately, a very sly shop owner, Ashtin Carnaby, intended to pillage the place for its valuables, but the spirits then turn him into one of them. Chakashi, a Native-American man, who was a medium between the spirits, trusted them with the knowledge of their sanctuary and informed Kida that she can choose Atlantis' destiny.

The third mystery that needed to be solved was from Whitmore's cabinet. An old competitor Erik Hellstrom stole a possession of his (having lost his mind following the stock market crash ruining his company; Hellstrom thinks he's Odin), an artifact called the Spear of Destiny (aka Odin's spear, Gungnir), presumably an Atlantean artifact of origin. When they tracked him down in the frigid Nordic Mountains, he presumed Milo to be the trickster god, Loki and Kida to be his long lost daughter, Brunnhildë and kidnaps her. His intentions were to end the world in Ragnarok. He created a lava monster (the Fire demon Surtr (or Surtur)) and an ice beast (a Nordic Frost Giant) to destroy the world, but well-placed explosives used by Vinnie distracted the monsters (By causing each beast to believe they were trying to destroy each other). Kida later gets a hold of the spear and uses it to crush the beasts with Hellstrom's castle, Asgard. During these escapades, Kida came into a greater understanding of just how powerful the Atlantean Crystal is, and she must choose between hiding it and sharing it with the rest of mankind.

Having retrieved the spear, Kida realized her father was wrong to hide the Crystal from mankind. She combined the Spear with the Heart Crystal and lifted Atlantis to the surface. Two fishermen were shocked when they suddenly see an entire continent rise before them. In the end, we see Atlantis above the water for the first time in over 9000 years.

As the movie came to an end, Mr. Whitmore narrated that from then on, the world was a better place.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) 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).
 * 2) 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).
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) 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.
 * 5) 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 by David Kaufman (James Arnold Taylor in certain recordings) 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).
 * 6) 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.
 * 7) 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

 * 1) The voice acting is still alright, especially given how many of the original voice actors return here.
 * 2) As previously mentioned (in WIS# 3), the concept of the cast travelling across the world to solve mysteries isn't a bad one, even if it was poorly executed.
 * 3) The characters are mainly faithful to the original incarnations, so at least they aren't dumped on unlike some other Disney sequels.
 * 4) In spite of the issues with the ending, Kida's decision was still pretty understandable.

Trivia

 * This is the last Disneytoon Studios film to be released under Walt Disney Television Animation as DisneyMovieToons/Disney Video Premieres moved to Walt Disney Feature Animation (now Walt Disney Animation Studios) in January 2003 & renamed DisneyToon Studios on June of the same year.
 * This is the first film to use the DisneyToon Studios logo.

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