NOT JUST A COUPLE OF SONG-AND-DANCE MEN `ATLANTIS' AN ANIMATED DISNEY VENTURE INTO ADVENTURE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Disney animation directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale sat down for lunch nearly five years ago at Chevy's in Burbank, ordered some chimichangas and a pitcher of margaritas and got down to the business of what to do next. The directing team had made two musicals - the Oscar-nominated ``Beauty and the Beast'' in 1991 and, five years later, ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' - and, to be honest, they were a little tired of trying to figure out how to incorporate show tunes into their narratives.

``We were certainly aware of the formula, and I know audiences were, too,'' says Trousdale, who lives with his wife and two children in Northridge. ``I don't think people were tired of the stories or the animation, but there was a feeling that we were rehashing a lot of the elements. It was time to do something new.''

Or as producer Don Hahn puts it: ``Disneyland isn't just Fantasyland. There's a place called Adventureland, too. So instead of going down Main Street and through the castle to Fantasyland, where we've been the past decade, we thought we'd make a left turn at the hub and go into Adventureland and see what kind of story we could find there.''

`Lost' and found

What they found was ``Atlantis: The Lost Empire,'' a PG-rated Disney animated movie with no songs, no cute critters and little in the way of fairy dust. Instead, ``Atlantis'' is a throwback to the live-action movies the studio made in the 1950s and '60s, rough-and-tumble adventure pictures like ``20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,'' ``The Swiss Family Robinson'' and ``In Search of the Castaways.''

Certain elements of the Disney formula remain. Parents are notably absent (they're either dead or traumatically taken away), the heroines are improbably curvaceous and there's a gooey political correctness that permeates the film's final act. Even with all that baggage, ``Atlantis,'' with its nonstop action, rates as a significant departure for the studio.

Says Trousdale: ``I've talked to friends who are in the business who ask me, 'Is it going to have songs?' When I tell them no, they say, 'Thank God.' ''

It remains to be seen, however, whether parents and children accustomed to going to Disney's ``Fantasyland'' animated musicals are interested in an ``under the sea'' experience that doesn't include singing crustaceans. The failure of last summer's animated adventure tale ``Titan A.E.'' casts a small shadow over ``Atlantis,'' although 20th Century Fox's ``Titan'' lacked a distinct advantage in the movie marketplace: the Disney brand name and the marketing team that's behind it.

Disney's 'insurance policy'

``Parents trust the Disney name, even with the PG rating,'' says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. ``Their name is their insurance policy. But they are going to need some teen-age boys to come to this movie, and that audience might be more inclined to go see Angelina Jolie in `Tomb Raider.' ''

Going after an audience

But then, adolescent boys have always been Disney's most resistant audience, at least according to Thomas Schumacher, president of the studio's animation division.

``We get them eventually, but they're the most likely to turn up their noses, at least for the first couple of weeks,'' Schumacher says.

Producer Hahn, for one, downplays the significance of the young male audience.

``Just because 'Titan A.E.' did what it did doesn't mean you stop believing in these types of stories,'' says Hahn, who produced ``The Lion King,'' ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'' and the two previous Wise-Trousdale collaborations.

``My recollection is that 'Titan A.E.' was marketed tightly to teen-age boys, especially with the soundtrack, and that is fundamentally not our goal with this movie. We never thought, 'Let's put together a bunch of explosions and make a movie for teen-age boys.' Is there stuff that appeals to that group? Sure, I hope so. But there's stuff for everybody.''

``Atlantis'' follows a scattered scholar named Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) and a mismatched band of mercenaries who set out to find the legendary lost empire. The movie is set in 1914, meaning there's plenty of clunky metal submarines and machinery as well as a certain disconnect with the times since Milo's crew includes a Latina mechanic, an African-American doctor and a crusty, busty blond femme fatale.

``A bunch of sweaty, 30-year-old white guys just wouldn't be that interesting,'' Hahn says.

The first half of the film follows the search for Atlantis; the second half shows what happens after the explorers reach their destination. The balancing of the plot was purely intentional, says co-director Wise.

``We had been watching 'Journey to the Center of the Earth,' '' Wise says, ``and it's actually kind of dull unless you're a geologist. Just when stuff starts getting good, they go back to the surface. So we thought, 'Wait a minute, what if we shortened the whole first part and then added all this stuff about Atlantis?' ''

Visually, the animation departs from past Disney films with the inclusion of designs from comic book artist Mike Mignola (``Hellboy,'' ``Bram Stoker's Dracula''). Both Wise and Trousdale were big fans of Mignola's flat, angular, blocky style and asked him to work with art director Dave Goetz to come up with some ideas for the film's characters and its underwater civilization.

``We knew we didn't want aquamen or fish people or Greek-columned architecture that looked like it belonged in an aquarium,'' Wise says. ``Atlantis was supposed to be the mother civilization, so we took a little bit from a lot of ancient worlds - China, South America, the Middle East - and created a visual synthesis.''

Bigger and better?

``Atlantis'' also distinguishes itself visually by its wide-screen, CinemaScope format, which is 30 percent bigger than a regular movie screen. Disney has made wide-screen movies before (``Sleeping Beauty,'' ``Lady and the Tramp'' and the recent Pixar collaboration ``A Bug's Life'' being the most notable examples), and the format lends itself nicely to an action-adventure movie like ``Atlantis.''

``It just gives you a bigger canvas, which helps you convince the audience that these worlds are exciting and real,'' says supervising animator John Pomeroy.

Pomeroy headed animation work on the movie's hero, Milo Thatch, working closely with Michael J. Fox to bring the character to life. Pomeroy says Fox's health problems with Parkinson's disease added a poignancy to the actor's vocal work that might not have been there before.

``I think he was able to draw on some things in his life that really created some emotional nuances that weren't in the script,'' Pomeroy says. ``Michael's funny; that's a given. But he made Milo a very touching, sympathetic character.''

A touching, sympathetic character in an action-adventure movie?

``I guess you can take away the songs, but some things never change,'' co-director Trousdale says, laughing.

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Now, Voyager

Disney's `Atlantis: The Lost Empire' a journey of a different kind

(2) Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) gets a guided tour of the ancient world from Atlantean Princess Kida, voiced by Cree Summer.

(3) The ancient civilization of Atlantis experiences a natural catastrophe when it abuses its superior powers in Walt Disney Pictures' new animated adventure film ``Atlantis.''