Today’s quick review: Atlantis: Milo’s Return. With the rebirth of Atlantis underway, Milo Thatch (James Arnold Taylor), the explorer who helped discover the sunken city, returns to the surface with Kida (Cree Summer), now the Queen of Atlantis. Reuniting with Milo’s old friends, they follow rumors of an enormous sea monster to a North Atlantic fishing village to determine whether the beast is a rogue Atlantean weapon.
Atlantis: Milo’s Return is an animated fantasy adventure with modest amounts of humor and a flimsy plot. Though nominally the sequel to Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Milo’s Return shares remarkably little with the original. Instead it transplants the cast into a new story with only loose ties to Atlantis. The result is a flat movie that scraps many of the strengths of the first one. What’s left is watchable but unexciting.
Milo’s Return consists of three short stories that are largely independent of one another. The stories are generic kids’ fare: Milo and friends travel around the world to investigate strange events that could be the work of Atlantean technology. The closest the stories have to a unifying theme is Kida’s doubts about whether to hide Atlantis from the world. The disjointed structure of the movie gives it little purpose and no emotional arc whatsoever.
Atlantis: Milo’s Return serves mainly as an excuse to revisit the characters of the first film. If you happened to enjoy The Lost Empire’s goofy supporting cast, you may get something out of their antics in Milo’s Return. But without a meaningful story for them to engage with, it’s mostly an empty exercise.
5.1 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 5.5 for light adventure and a dash of comedy held back by mediocre writing and a weak premise.