"Climb aboard the Nautilus...and into a strange undersea world of spellbinding adventure! Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre star as shipwrecked survivors taken captive by the mysterious Captain Nemo, brilliantly portrayed by James Mason. Wavering between genius and madness, Nemo has launched a deadly crusade across the seven seas. But can the captive crew expose his evil plan before he destroys the world?" --DVD liner summary for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

ATLANTIS: MILO'S RETURN (2003) *1/2 (out of four) Image B Sound A- Extras D+

Buy At Amazon USA Buy at Amazon Canada or Compare Prices Maybe the cheapest-looking direct-to-video animated sequel from Disney yet, Atlantis: Milo's Return is lamer than its predecessor but arguably more entertaining, since it's like three "Scooby-Doo" episodes strung together as opposed to the loud, incomprehensible, and ponderous dry-run for Treasure Planet that was Atlantis: The Lost Empire. When the ragtag crew that found Atlantis returns to the underwater city to pick the brain of fearless leader Milo Thatch (voice of James Arnold Taylor; Michael J. Fox was the only actor from the original to bow out of this follow-up), everyone including Milo's Atlantean girlfriend Kida ventures--on a quest for what, beats me--first to a ghost town in the Nordic mountains (where they battle a Verne-ian octopus called "The Kraken"), then to the American southwest (where an Indian elder plays that hilarious old joke where he threatens to kill them by summoning coyotes from Hell after they stave off a threat to his people), then to the home of philanthropist Preston Whitmore, who was minding his own business one evening when a Viking demon broke in and stole his favourite Scandinavian spear. We also get an epilogue that functions as an eleventh-hour subversion of all that was accomplished in the first film--the excuse Disney completists have been waiting for to avoid watching the justly-maligned Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Stay away from this one, too, but know that it facilitates a relatively painless zombification. Atlantis: Milo's Return arrives on DVD in a 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with a distracting amount of edge-enhancement, thus negating the pristine condition of the master. An inexpressive soundmix comes in same-tasting DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 flavours. Trailers for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Jungle Book 2, Stitch!, Bionicle: The Movie - The Mask of Light, and Kim Possible, a kid-aimed game ("Search for the Spear of Destiny"), and a deleted scene ("Kraken Baby Sequence") that restores a cheeky ending to one chapter of the film round out the disc.-BC Running Time 80 minutes Aspect Ratio(s) 1.66:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced; Languages English DD 5.1, English DTS 5.1, French DD 5.1; CC Yes; Subtitles English; DVD-5; Region One; Disney

As a toddler, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea put me to sleep even faster than Star Wars did (sorry, Savant), but I always cut the film significant slack for having suffered an amputating video transfer. On DVD, the picture is so severely letterboxed that we grow tired another way, straining to see it, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is plodding besides, filled with enough mock-losophy for a third Matrix sequel. Earl Felton's indisputably sophisticated script is yet another to fall victim to the overzealous hommage of subsequent entries in the underwater power-struggle genre (The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide, Atlantis: The Lost Empire (see sidebar), and even Ghost Ship come to mind) that it minted; we can give credit where credit is due while admitting that the movie sometimes exists in its own shadow. Though often breathtaking--the picture contains the slickest F/X predating the advent of master illusionist Douglas Trumbull--and appealingly sinister, a few barnacles have sprouted up around 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Carrying the "Vault Disney" tag within its platters but not on the cover art itself, Disney's THX-certified, 2-disc Special Edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (overseen by production house Sparkhill) presents the film at its original CinemaScope aspect ratio of 2.55:1 in a transfer enhanced for 16x9 displays. The details are so intricate and each shot is so busy as to, when combined with a consistent, video-ish ghosting artifact, inhibit absolute crispness of image. Mild, welcome grain helps maintain the persuasion of celluloid, though, while saturation is strong and hues seem much more accurate than the pink tones of the film's VHS and LaserDisc incarnations. Audio has been remastered in 5.1 Dolby Digital to striking effect, with explosions, somewhat jarringly, giving off a rumble to challenge the Earthquake Sensurround experience. Voices do not exhibit the lispy quality of fifties soundtracks and are firmly anchored in the centre channel. Surround gimmickry is used sparingly--the rear speakers are most apparent during the tribal siege and squid attack.

Film historian Rudy Behlmer pumps director Fleischer for information on Disc 1's feature-length yakker, but the commentary is rendered instantly obsolete by Disc 2's 88-minute "The Making of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", which covers all facets of the production with candour, humour, and nostalgia. A post-stroke Douglas is difficult to decipher now and again, but his memories, especially of co-star Lorre, are fond and delightful. Fleischer, meanwhile, recalls with awe being courted despite his pedigree (he's the son of Max Fleischer, head of Disney's then-rival animation studio) and remembers sympathetically the memory problems that often led actor Paul Lukas to lash out at cast and crew. The material here just gets richer as the doc progresses--frankly, I don't want to spoil it for you.

Other video-based supplements include the featurettes "Jules Verne and Walt Disney: Exploring the Imagination" (16 mins.), in which university professor George A. Slusser asserts that Verne was the Stephen King of his generation; "The Humboldt Squid: A Real Monster!" (7 mins.), an unsettling facts-about-giant-squids piece hosted by oceanographer Scott Cassell; "The Musical Legacy of Paul Smith" (11 mins.), a tribute to the composer of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and such other Disney films as Pinocchio (for which he won an Oscar); "Monsters of the Deep" (7 mins.), a black-and-white TV short made to promote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Walt discusses the squid battle and Douglas is stripped of his guitar by a prop man); "Touring the Nautilus" (5 min.), a sequence of blueprints that blur the line between fact and fiction (are we to think they were they sketched by Walt's or Nemo's crew?); "Movie Merchandise" (6 mins.), a press conference-style interview with the Brooks brothers, collectors of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea memorabilia; and "Production Gallery", a 3-minute montage of production stills.

And that ain't all. Capping off Disc 1 is the usual assortment of start-up trailers (Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Nemo, X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine, Atlantis: Milo's Return) plus a rare, charming (if patently offensive) CinemaScope cartoon starring Donald Duck, "Grand Canyonscope" (7 mins.), offered in 2.55:1 anamorphic widescreen. Disc 2 resurrects "The Sunset Squid Fight"--the initial, spectacularly failed stab at the squid tussle, reconstructed from colour 16mm outtakes (it's Ed Wood cheesy)--as well as the "unused animation" that realized, with limited success, Fleischer's idea for bioluminescent fish to swim past Nemo's porthole. Galleries of production stills, production art, filmmaker biographies, posters, lobby cards, merchandise, set documents (call sheets and the like), and a screenplay excerpt of the film's climax (Felton had a beautiful command of language), three radio spots, storyboard-to-screen comparisons for the scuba and squid scenes, an outtakes reel, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea's 1954 theatrical trailer finish off this exhaustive treasure chest of a DVD. Simply put, Disney may never top this A+ effort.-Bill Chambers

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
127 minutes
MPAA
G
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.55:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English
2 DVD-9s
Region One
Disney

the critic

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Published: May 20, 2003