In theaters

ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE. 95 minutes, PG, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, written by Tab Murphy.

When compared to Disney’s best animated films, the company’s latest, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” doesn’t compare.

As directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, the team behind “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” their latest has a promising beginning and animation that effectively borrows from Japanese anime. But the moment the film dives 20,000 leagues under the sea in search of the mythic city Plato made famous, the plot starts to sputter, the characters begin to hiccup – and the movie itself begins to drown.

The opening, which features Atlantis and its people being swallowed whole by the sea, is stirring and well done, but it will likely be confusing to younger viewers. Indeed, its characters initially don’t speak English, but a faux Atlantis language translated in subtitles.

Though “Atlantis” is meant for older viewers, my screening was packed with the 7-and-under crowd, a good deal of whom kept looking to their parents for some idea of what was happening during the film’s first few rousing moments. What’s more unfortunate is that when “Atlantis” does switch to English, parents of older, more sensitive children might find themselves doing some further explaining: “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” follows Disney’s “Aladdin” in that it mines much of its humor not from its situations, but from its racial and ethnic stereotypes.

After the gripping opening sequence, the film cuts to 1914, where an expedition to the lost city is being bankrolled by eccentric billionaire Preston Whitmore (voice of John Mahoney).

The film’s hero, Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), quits his day job as a museum cartographer to join the expedition’s gruff Commander Rourke (James Garner) and his melting pot of a crew: a stinky Frenchman (Corey Burton), a dimwitted Italian explosives expert “who ah-speeka like dees” (Don Novello), a tough Latina mechanic clearly modeled after the actress Rosie Perez (Jacqueline Obradors), and a muscular, kindly black doctor drawn to look like an athlete (Phil Morris).

When the crew finds Atlantis – too easily, I might add – a romance builds between Milo and a buxom Atlantean princess (Cree Summer) before the tide literally turns against them in several key plot twists that won’t be revealed here, but which are strangely wrapped around a story that feels more like “Star Wars” as written by Jules Verne than it does an underwater adventure based on the Atlantis myth.

With the twists too predictable and the characters among Disney’s flattest, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” does have a few fun moments, but it ultimately generates no heat and has no emotional core. Its climactic scene, as beautifully drawn and as shrewdly edited as it is, is especially rote, a spectacle that never becomes the sort of heart-stopping event that satisfies audiences – or creates a sufficient box-office buzz.

Grade: C

THE GIRL. 83 minutes, R, directed by Sande Zeig, written by Zeig and Monique Wittig. Starts tomorrow, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

Sande Zeig’s glum lesbian drama, “The Girl,” is essentially soft-core porn for the art crowd, a vacuous, sullen movie that moves from sex scene to sex scene for the sake of moving from sex scene to sex scene. There’s only the barest of stories told here, none of which is interesting, but all of which is pretentious and dull.

Following one of last year’s best movies, the superior lesbian drama, “Aimee and Jaguar,” “The Girl” doesn’t have an honest moment in it – it’s absurdly arch, the cinematic equivalent of a frown, a movie that’s so dry and humorless, getting into bed with its bland characters – and really, since we never come to know these people, that’s what we’re asked to do here – becomes too much of a chore and a bore.

As directed by Zeig from her and Monique Wittig’s spare script, the film, set in Paris, follows The Painter (Agathe de la Boulaye), a mannish woman with a wistful stare and a smoky demeanor who picks up the sexy nightclub singer The Girl (Claire Keim), even though The Girl, a bisexual, is clearly still involved with The Man (Cyril Lecomte). Further complicating matters is the fact that The Painter is still involved with the extremely understanding Bu Save (Sandra N’Kake), a woman who is so in love with The Painter, she will apparently put up with anything.

“The Girl” tries to re-create the sort of hipster sensibility that did well in 1960s cinema, but it’s all text and no subtext, a pseudonoirish romp that tries so hard to be stylish and poetic, it’s all effort and no soul. With The Painter, The Girl and The Man bringing down the film with a chilly remoteness fueled by nothing that resembles anything close to real life, I kept praying for the moment they all met The End.

Grade: D-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Proof of Life ? C-

Save the Last Dance ? C-

State and Main ? B

O Brother,

Where Art Thou ? A-

Cast Away ? A-

Crouching Tiger, Hidden

Dragon ? A+

The House of Mirth ? B

Shadow of the

Vampire ? B+

Traffic ? A

Antitrust ? D

Before Night Falls ? A

Best in Show ? A

Requiem for a Dream ? A

Vertical Limit ? B-

Pay it Forward ? C

Duets ? D

Quills ? B

What Women Want ? B

Yi Yi ? A

All the Pretty Horses ? C-

Miss Congeniality ? B

The Emperor’s

New Groove ? A-

Little Nicky ? F

One Day in

September ? B+

Bamboozled ? B+

Finding Forrester ? B+

The Ladies Man ? D+

Bounce ? B+

Men of Honor ? C-

Space Cowboys ? B+