[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atlantisthelostempire.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''[[TagLine Atlantis is waiting...]]'']]

->''"...in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea."''
-->-- '''Creator/{{Plato}}, 360 B.C.'''

Entry #41 in the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon, this 2001 movie begins with [[DistantPrologue a great cataclysm that occurred in the distant past]] which swallows up an entire, highly advanced civilization. Only through the HeroicSacrifice of the queen is the civilization spared complete destruction, but to the rest of the world, it seems as if it was wiped from the face of the planet...

Flash forward to 1914. Milo Thatch, a young, poor, orphaned linguist, has uncovered evidence of the existence of a great civilization in the past, {{Atlantis}}, which was previously thought to be just a myth. Despite his breakthroughs in deciphering clues hidden in the writings and legends of many disparate cultures, his ideas and his proposed expedition--to find "the Shepherd's Journal" and follow its instructions to the lost city itself--is rejected outright by his peers. However, a mysterious woman steps in and offers him a chance to prove his theory, backed by the mysterious billionaire Mr. Whitmore, who knew Milo's grandfather and had agreed years earlier to help finance Milo's expedition.

Once Milo meets Whitmore and convinces him of his own personal determination and commitment, he is invited to join an expedition that is setting out to make the unprecedented trip to Atlantis itself. The rag-tag team is led by Commander Rourke, a straight, no-nonsense military man, who also knew Milo's grandfather and worked with him on the previous expedition where they ''found'' the Shepherd's Journal. Once they arrive at the destination from which they might never return, they discover an underdeveloped, dying society that has abandoned and forgotten their written language -- and Milo becomes a translator between the two cultures. However, it is revealed that there is an ulterior purpose to the expedition that Milo is unaware of, and his compatriots are not all that they seem.

While a sequel named ''Shards of Chaos'' as well as an animated TV series named ''Team Atlantis'' was under development, the film's somewhat disappointing performance at the box-office led Disney to cancel both the sequel and the series, the latter of which was a bit into its production. Instead, the completed material for the series was reworked into a DirectToVideo sequel film named ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisMilosReturn''.

The film was accompanied by three tie-in video games. ''Atlantis'' is also the third Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon film to be rated PG in America, with the first being 1985's ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'' and the second being ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}'' in 2000 (''Dinosaur'', however, was only added to the Canon in 2008).

[[WhatCouldHaveBeen The first draft of the movie script]], which features the mystic character Zoltan cut from the final version and a number of other differences, is available [[https://archive.org/details/atlantis-script-1-first-draft here]].

----
!!This film provides examples of:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:A-L]]
* AbandonShip: Commander Rourke gives this order when their submarine the ''Ulysses'' is attacked and destroyed by a mechanical leviathan guarding the entrance to Atlantis. Several of the ejected escape pods are destroyed by the leviathan, leaving only a handful of survivors.
* AcousticLicense: During the opening sequence, one of the Atlantean pilots angrily shouts from his Hammerhead craft to another that "You fool! You've destroyed us all!" Never mind how loud the flying craft are, how fast they're moving, and how many of them they are all around the pilots, considering how close they were to the explosion, they should all have ''instantly'' [[SteelEardrums had their eardrums ruptured]], if not killed outright.
* ActionGirl: It would be easier to just say "all of them," but it's a lot more fun to name them specifically:
** Audrey is a teenage mechanic who's surprisingly proactive, given her age. Apparently she also has a sister who is poised to become a boxing champion.
** Helga's not just a FemmeFatale - she can kick some ''serious'' ass too.
** Even Ms. Packard gets in on this during the climax.
** Kida herself is one, being able to hold her own against trained soldiers (and, according to her father, she was quite ruthless in the past).
* ActorAllusion:
** When Milo first meets Commander Rourke, the latter comments that he "prefers a good western." This could be seen as a reference to Creator/JamesGarner's earlier television series ''Series/{{Maverick}},'' where he played a gambler in TheWildWest.
** Two for Creator/MichaelJFox and ''Film/BackToTheFuture1''. In his first scene, Marty/Milo is rehearsing something, only to realize he's late. Later, when Milo realizes [[spoiler:King Kashekim Nedakh is dying]], he says "What a nightmare", which was what Marty says when he wakes up in the "improved" 1985 in the end.
* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: Although by the time Milo and the crew gets there, [[LostTechnology the natives have forgotten how everything works since everything was lost in the flood shown in the beginning of the film.]]
* AdvancedAncientHumans: The Atlanteans have technology and science far more advanced than anything recorded in history including laser-shooting hovercrafts, floating monuments, crystals that grant healing and advanced longevity, the ability to rapidly pick up languages created millennia after their own, and massive machines. All this while still possessing tribalistic characteristics. In their case, they're a strange case of a proud warrior race and a proud scholar race.
* AdventurerArchaeologist: Though no individual characters themselves fit the trope, the movie as a whole fit the genre perfectly.
* AFatherToHisMen: Rourke, particularly towards Milo, to whom he serves as a second father figure. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope It turns out to be an act]], since he doesn’t give a damn about any of his men, and flat-out murders Helga at the drop of a hat.]]
* AffectionateGestureToTheHead: At the end of the movie, Milo is saying goodbye to all his friends. When he comes to [[ThePigPen Mole, who offers a big hug]], he hesitates before patting his head instead.
* AlliterativeName: '''Th'''addeus '''Th'''atch, Milo's deceased grandfather.
* AlternativeForeignThemeSong:
** The film has a different theme song for the Japanese version, called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAJg4Pp2dWE "Crystal Vine"]], written by DREAMS COME TRUE.
** Germany has local girlband No Angels re-perform the song "Atlantis" by and with Scottish singer and songwriter Music/{{Donovan}}.
** Also an alternative song in the Latin American version, to the point where the North American DVD has an entire hidden ''section'' you cannot access if you select to see the movie in anything but Spanish when you have the chance at the loading screen.
* AllThereInTheManual: Much of the backstory for the Shepherd's Journal and more detail on Atlantis's workings can be found in tie-in books, most prominently in "Atlantis: Subterranean Tours", an in-universe travel guide Whitmore produced for secretive later expeditions for dignitaries, celebrities and Whitmore employees.
* AmbiguousSituation: It isn't clear if Mr Whitmore was actually secretly part of Rourke's plan to steal the crystal or even the mastermind of it or if like Milo he wasn't aware of the crystal. However it is likely the latter, especially as he was best friends with Milo's grandfather and he likely wouldn't want murdered people on his conscience.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Atlanteans, intentionally so. They were designed to be the people from which all other cultures evolved from.
* AnachronismStew: The movie makes an effort to avoid this, minus Atlantis itself and some of the Steampunk / Dieselpunk tech used by the expedition.
** Though Mole does use a real Soviet [=PPSh=]-41 submachine gun, steel helmets and gas masks would not be commonplace until 1915-16.
** The expedition uses deep diving Submarines (at this time they were incapable of going deep or remaining under for long), acoustic torpedoes (which wouldn't be invented for decades), and fighter airplanes with synchronizing gear (wouldn't be developed until well into WWI).
** Coelacanths, like the ones in Whitmore's aquarium, were still thought to have been extinct in 1914, and remained so until their rediscovery in 1938. Justified as this is mainly meant to illustrate his character as a CollectorOfTheStrange and an adventurer. Who else would fund a trip to Atlantis but a man who owns fish decades before their actual (re)discovery?
* AnimationBump:
** A rather odd example--while it wasn't uncommon for films like this to assign an animator to each main character, Helga's animation is considerably more fluid than the rest of the cast. This may be due to her supervising animator being from [[Creator/WaltDisneyAnimationUnits France]].
** Milo himself is sometimes subject to these, during which he truly comes across as an animated Michael J. Fox.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: Milo describes the Leviathan as probably nothing more than a sculpture to frighten the superstitious, even though they're already on an expedition to recover a lost advanced civilization commonly described as fairy tale.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: "We've done a lot of things we're not proud of: robbing graves, eh, plundering tombs, double-parking..." In the Latin American dub, he ends the list with [[KickTheDog "kicked a dog"]].
* ArtisticLicenseGeology: The volcano. Unless it were pretty much already erupting, the crash of [[spoiler:a hot air balloon]] wouldn't even dent a lava dome. Further, it erupts in a "Strombolian" fashion (creating lava bombs, splatter, and explosively fast lava flows) but produces lava in a volume only seen in Hawai'ian eruption. They'd probably have something on the order of ''several hours'' to construct the shield in a Hawai'ian eruption, but RuleOfDrama! Presumably a true "Plinian" eruption (explosive, the type that the Mount St. Helens eruption followed) would have been too hard to animate. The danger from them are not lava, but pyroclastic clouds of red-hot gasses and tiny bits of magma that travel several ''hundred'' miles per hour.
* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Averted (See ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation below) and also played straight. In most languages, the translation in the beginning would not work, but the Norse words for Ireland and Iceland really are one rune (letter) apart, so it makes perfect sense for the two words to be accidentally switched. However, later on the Atlanteans can magically speak not just English but every language descended from their own, even though that is '''''not''''' how languages evolve. Additionally, many of the languages spoken are from completely different language families (meaning that they are ''not'' descended from the same language, Atlantean or otherwise).
** Milo can speak Atlantean through slowly translating their written language. Unless a Romanization or Anglicization of the alphabet exists (which is doubtful), this is impossible, as you can't tell what a letter is supposed to sound like solely through what it looks like. On the other hand, his pronunciation is nowhere near perfect; Kida comments that his accent is "boorish, provincial, and you speak it through your nose."
** It is possible for a civilization to lose the knowledge needed to read their own written language (Hieroglyphics were a complete mystery to modern Egyptians until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and while it's still more or less possible to read the words of Latin or Old English it's next to impossible to extract much meaning without specific knowledge of those languages). However, the people of Atlantis are extremely long-lived, Kida was slightly older than a toddler at the time of the Great Flood and is now a young woman nearly 9000 years later. This means most Atlanteans alive at the time of the story were alive at the height of their civilization. It seems very far-fetched that a people would lose the ability to read their own written language within one generation, especially when those same people are apparently able to pick up spoken languages they've never heard before in a matter of seconds.
* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Despite holding a naval officer's rank, Commander Rourke is seen wearing a green uniform and Stetson hat more in line with a US Army officer (which is apparently his background according to supplementary material). [[spoiler:He's actually a mercenary, so he can presumably call himself whatever the hell he wants]].
* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
** When Milo lies down on the chalkboard and gets it on his shirt, it somehow ends up not as a mirrored image, but so he can fill in the chalk drawing by standing in front of it – that is, the chalk that should have been on his right ended up flipped on his left, and vice versa.
** The Atlantean tech gets a pass due to the 'sufficiently advanced technology', but there are a couple of instances. For instance, the ''Ulysses'' explodes after the crew escapes, when at thalassic depths it should have been crumpling in on itself as the boiler explosion within compromised its structure.
** Tunnel boring machines don't actually look like the one Mole uses. Instead they have a mostly flat drilling mechanism. Though this was likely done so the audience would recognize the machine.
** Packard is somehow able to carry on a telephone conversation with her friend Marge on a submarine, several miles under the ocean, ''in the 1910s''. (That is, of course, unless Marge is also somewhere aboard the ''Ulysses''.)
* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: One of the most memorable and terrifying in film history is an attack by a 2-mile long [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie robot lobster kaiju]]. Its ''mandibles'' are larger than '''the entire ''[[CoolShip Ulysses]]'''''.
* {{Atlantis}}: The goal is to reach and explore Atlantis. It's literally in the title.
* AwardBaitSong: Oh, it may not be a musical, but it is ''still'' a Disney animated film. Thus, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZad3r63wAI "Where the Dream Takes You"]]. Sadly, it is not in [[{{Fictionary}} Atlantean]].
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Kida was the first Disney Princess to become a queen in her opening film. This wouldn't happen again until ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' twelve years later.
* AxCrazy: [[spoiler:Rourke following his VillainousBreakdown, both figuratively and literally.]]
* BadassAdorable: Kida.
* BadassBookworm: Milo during the climax.
* BaitAndSwitch: Discussed by Milo and Audrey; She says [[WantedASonInstead her father wanted two sons]] to inherit his repair business and be a professional boxer, then implies the ambitions went unfulfilled because he got her and her sister instead. Milo asks about her sister, Audrey says she's a middleweight boxer on her way to championship.
* BareMidriffsAreFeminine: Atlantean women tend to wear midriff-baring outfits, whereas men are either bare-chested of fully robed. Most notably, Princess Kida spends the majority of the movie in a sarong and a midriff-baring top, until the end of the movie where she switches to a more modest royal outfit.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: [[spoiler:Helga]] ends up looking pretty good for someone who was just ''thrown out of a zeppelin''.
* BerserkButton: Milo accidentally lies down on Molière's dirt collection (it was on ''Milo's'' bed and covered by a blanket). Molière loses it.
* BizarreTasteInFood: Mole. When Cookie is serving up dinner, he slops baked beans onto everyone's trays, but refers to it as Caesar salad (for Sweet), escargot (for Audrey) and oriental spring rolls (for Mole). Mole looks at his tray, disappointed, and protests to Audrey that he wanted the escargot, and Audrey shoves her tray at him. Mole abandons the 'spring rolls' and digs into the 'escargot,' even though it's the same greasy food. The fact that Mole eats Cookie's food at all and apparently even looks forward to it can count as well.
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: Or, in this case, ''mercenary''.
-->'''Rourke:''' I prefer the term "Adventure Capitalist".
** Averted a few minutes later, when he flat-out calls himself a mercenary.
* TheBet: Whitmore reveals that, years ago, he and Milo's grandfather had made a bet: if Thaddeus Thatch ever actually found the Shepherd's Journal, Whitmore would not only personally fund the mission to find the city, he would kiss Thatch right on the mouth.
-->'''Whitmore:''' Imagine my embarrassment when he ''found'' the darn thing.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Downplayed. Although everyone has [[EarnYourHappyEnding earned their happy ending]] and Atlantis is now thriving once more, Milo and Kida's story ends with them holding an Atlantean funeral for her father.]]
* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands:
** [[spoiler:When the expedition turns out to be a group of mercenaries, Rourke shoots Kida's knife out of her hand when she fights his {{Mooks}}.]]
** [[spoiler:Vinnie shoots Rourke's Lewis gun out of his hand during the climax.]]
* BlatantLies: Used for humor and as the official story in the end. [[spoiler:Pretty much the crew that made it back home are talking about how it was all a dead end and how everyone died... while they're wearing their crystals and new, expensive clothes, with Whitmore looking at the photographs of Atlantis.]]
* BookEnds: The film begins with the Kida's mother being chosen by the Heart of Atlantis, taking Kida's bangle with her as she floats into the air to merge with it, and ends with [[spoiler: Kida un-merging from the crystal, holding the bangle, and even becoming the next Queen herself]].
* BookSnap: Milo has just been handed the Shepherd's Journal, a supposed first-person account of the lost city of Atlantis, by Mr. Whitmore. As he peruses it, Whitmore comments that it's probably fake. Milo quickly shuts the journal and tells him that he his certain of the existence of Atlantis and is willing to do anything to prove it...which is exactly what Whitmore wanted to hear.
* BodyToJewel: Kida merges with the [[spoiler:Heart of Atlantis]]. Later on [[spoiler:Rourke is turned into a crystal monster after making contact with a crystallized shard of glass]].
* BrickJoke: Sweet says that his surgical saw can supposedly cut through a femur in twenty-eight seconds, and bets that he can cut that time in half. Later during the race to save Kida...
-->'''Audrey:''' I thought you said this thing could cut through a femur in twenty-eight seconds!\\
'''Sweet:''' Less talk, more saw!
* BridgeLogic: Vinny:
-->'''Milo:''' Will you look at the size of this? It's gotta be half a mile high, at least. It must have taken hundred -- no, thousands of years to carve this thing.\\
''[Vinny blows it up so it falls down over a chasm]''\\
'''Vinny:''' Hey, look, I made a bridge. It only took me, like, what? 10 seconds? 11, tops.
** This is made even more hilarious when taking into account that that particular scene is 10-11 seconds, depending on how you cut it.
* BubblegumPopping: Audrey Ramirez does this to Milo when introduced to him during his presentation on Atlantis.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Most of Rourke's team are highly competent in their respective fields but are very odd individuals otherwise.
* CampfireCharacterExploration: Milo first bonds with the other members of the expedition as they share their life stories while they set up camp for the night.
* CaperCrew: As this is not strictly a "caper" as much as it is the world's most expensive and dangerous excavation, some roles may be disputed, but for the most part it would follow for each character as:
** Commander Lyle Tiberius Rourke: The Mastermind, leader of his own private military group
** Lieutenant Helga Katrina Sinclair: The Partner in Crime, and second-in-command of said military group
** Preston B. Whitmore: The Backer
** Milo Thatch: The Hacker (figuratively) and/or The New Kid
** Vincenzo "Vinny" Santorini: The Gadget Guy, though his gadgets are bombs and other explosive materials
** Gaétan "Mole" Molière: The other Gadget Guy, specializing in excavating equipment
** Wilhelmina Bertha Packard: The Coordinator, being their resident radio operator
** Joshua Strongbear Sweet: The Muscle, physically speaking, but he is actually the crew's medical officer
** Audrey Rocio Ramirez: The Gadget Girl, the mechanic
** Jebidiah Allardyce "Cookie" Farnsworth: Simply the cook for the expedition, as his expertise is not specialized specifically for the crew's line of work
* CapitalismIsBad: The BigBad is a self-described "adventure capitalist" whose greed propels the conflict. Notably, [[spoiler:[[CutLexLuthorACheck he'd undoubtedly get rich from just]] ''[[CutLexLuthorACheck pictures]]'' [[CutLexLuthorACheck of the lost city]], but decides to increase his wealth further by stealing and selling the Atlantean deity, devastating their civilization in the process.]]
* CastOfSnowflakes: Thanks to the combination of Disney and Mike Mignola working together, everyone, including random Atlanteans and ''Ulysses'' crewmembers, looks completely unique.
* CaptainObvious:
-->'''Milo:''' ''[exasperated]'' Well, do ''you'' have any advice?!\\
'''Vinny:''' Yeah - Don't get shot.
* CastingGag: Creator/LeonardNimoy, who voices King Kashekim Nedakh, hosted ''Series/InSearchOf'', a TV series about different mysteries and phenomena in human history, one of which included the City of Atlantis.
* ChekhovsGun:
** Dr. Sweet's saw. Later used in an attempt to cut down the trapped Kida:
--->'''Audrey:''' ''[trying and failing to cut the chain]'' I thought you said this thing could cut through a femur in 28 seconds!\\
'''Sweet:''' Less talk, more saw!
** Helga carries Chekhov's Flare Gun tucked into her trousers.
** Milo plays with a small part of the submarine model, which turns out to be the large inflatable balloon that [[spoiler:Rourke and Helga try to take to the top of the volcanic chimney to escape]].
--->'''Sweet:''' Hold on. Back Up. Are you saying this volcano can blow at anytime?\\
'''Mole:''' No, no, no, no. That would take an explosive force of great magnitude.[[note]]Like the burning wreckage of a giant balloon crashing down on it, say.[[/note]]
** The Guardians of Atlantis -- the shield {{golem}}s, activated by the Heart of Atlantis, which protect the center of the city from the tsunami at the beginning [[spoiler:and from the exploding volcano at the end.]]
* ChekhovsSkill: Milo's ability to manage certain touchy boilers comes in handy to keep their equipment and vehicles going.
* ChekhovsVolcano: It's a tribute to pulp adventure. They find a dormant volcano. The rest practically writes itself.
* TheChiefsDaughter: Kida.
* ChimneyEntry: When Milo comes home to find the mysterious Helga in his living room and questions how she got in, she says...
--->'''Helga:''' I came down the chimney. [[SantaClaus Ho, ho, ho.]]
* CollectiveDeathGlare: At one point, Milo, acting as TheNavigator with the Shepherd's Journal, selects one route...that leads to the lair of a mechanical centipede. He then checks the journal again and sheepishly points the other way while the rest of the team glares at him.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: See NiceJobBreakingItHero below. Sweet's response to Milo's rant is to remind him "you did set the camp on fire and drop us down that big hole".
* TheComicallySerious: Ms. Packard during pretty much every life-threatening situation, most notably the Leviathan attack.
* CommunicationsOfficer: Mrs. Packard, although she spends most of the time chatting up her friend over the phone (which, unless she's also in the submarine, would be quite a feat using 1914 technology).
* CompanionCube: Milo is polite and apologizes to his audience when he has to climb over them to get to the boiler, despite having made them himself out of broomsticks and buckets.
* ConLang: The Atlantean language [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantean_language is an actual functional language]].
* ConvectionSchmonvection: Milo runs around on a rapidly melting volcano floor in thin shoes with no problem.
* ConvenientlyInterruptedDocument: The Shepherd's Journal has a missing page, which means that nobody knows exactly what the Atlanteans' power-source ''is''. [[spoiler:Rourke had the missing page in his boot the whole time.]]
* ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation: The runes between the Norse words "Ísland" and "Írland" [[JustifiedTrope really are fairly similar]], just like the English words "Ireland" and "Iceland". The only difference being a horizontal mirroring and a vertical line.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Sweet threatens the [[ThePigPen dirt-loving geologist]] Mole with soap if he doesn't leave Milo alone.
* CoolShip: The huge submarine ''Ulysses'' is awesome, built like something straight out of Jules Verne's stories (with dimensions unmatched until the Sen Toku-class of submarines had it been a real submarine). Unfortunately, even it is no match for the Leviathan's WaveMotionGun.
* CreatorThumbprint: [[ComicBook/{{Hellboy}} Mike Mignola]] was the production designer for the film and boy, does it show. Especially one scene during a travel montage where a shot combines both what Milo sees in the Shepherd's Journal with the route the crew follows, complete with Mike's signature use of black.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Milo cuts Rourke with crystallized glass, transforming him into a horrific, crystallized monster that can only roar in pain, and is then shattered by the giant spinning blades keeping the hot air balloon aloft.]]
* CrushTheKeepsake: Just before the climax, Rourke, after obtaining the Atlantean crystal and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness having no more need of him]], punches Milo in the face. Milo's framed picture of himself as a boy with his grandfather falls out and Rourke stomps on it, smashing the frame. Fortunately, the photo is intact, and what's more, it's this act that causes Audrey, followed by everybody else except [[TheDragon Helga]], to do a HeelFaceTurn and abandon Rourke.
* CultureChopSuey: This interpretation of Atlantis resembles an amalgam of African, Indian, Southeast Asian, Caribbean, South American and Pacific Island cultures.
* CunningLinguist: Milo.
* CurbStompBattle: For all their torpedoes, the ''Ulysses'' and her fleet of subpods never stood a chance against the Leviathan, leaving only a few dozen survivors to carry on to Atlantis.
* DamselInDistress: Kida... but in proof that Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, [[spoiler:once she is saved from distress, she proceeds to save everyone else from certain death]]. Plus, to even put her into distress, she had to be threatened with multiple guns [[spoiler:after taking out four professional mercenaries]].
* DarkerAndEdgier: Than the usual Disney fare, by a ''big'' degree, and considered to be a reason for its financial failure. It may hold the record for the largest number of people to die onscreen in a Disney movie (not major characters, but still). The FantasticNuke is the ''first'' thing that happens after the opening credits.
* DarkActionGirl: [[spoiler:Helga.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Vinny seems to be made of pure snark.
-->'''Rourke:''' Looks like we've got a little roadblock. Vinny, what do you think?\\
'''Vinny:''' I could un-roadblock that if I had about two-hundred of these. ''[holds up stick of dynamite]'' Problem is, I only got about...ten. Plus, y'know, five of my own. Couple cherry bombs. Road flare. Hey, too bad we don't have any nitroglycerin, eh, Milo?
* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Disney's parent-hatred sets a new record here, Kida loses her mother (well, [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence sort of]]) '''a minute and a half''' into the movie, after Queen Kashem's gotten something like five ''seconds'' of screen time.
* DeathGlare: The explorers give this to Milo after Milo almost led them down the jaws of a creature by accident due to holding the Shepherd's Journal upside down. Milo at the end [[spoiler:at everyone else, causing them to HeelFaceTurn and also glare at those that don't]].
* DeflectorShields: Atlantis is shown to have one in the prelude. They turn out to be a ChekhovsGun.
* DisneyDeath: Averted with [[spoiler:Kida's father]].
* DisneyVillainDeath:
** Subverted. [[spoiler:Helga survives the fall, but it's not likely she survived having a flaming zeppelin crashing down on her. And then the volcano erupts while she's under the zeppelin.]]
** Also averted by [[spoiler:Rourke]], who dies by getting caught in the zeppelin's blades.
* DissonantSerenity: Packard's SeenItAll attitude. From her "no, no, I'll call you" while the submarine is under attack to her dry "we're all gonna die" when that actually seems likely.
* DistantPrologue: The film opens with the destruction of Atlantis several thousand years ago as it is submerged beneath the ocean. Originally there was a different DistantPrologue intended for the opening, focusing on [[HornyVikings a viking ship]] that was trying to find the city, but the producers decided for a more action-packed opening. The alternate opening was instead put into the PC game.
* DistractedByTheSexy: "You do swim, do you not?", "Oh, I swim [[FreudianSlip pretty girl]]-- pr-pretty good! Good, I swim pretty good."
* TheDogBitesBack: It is [[spoiler:Helga's LastBreathBullet after Rourke betrays her]] that really foils the EvilPlan.
* DreadZeppelin: The Gyro-Evac, the airship [[spoiler:Rourke plans to use to carry the crystal to the surface]].
* DwindlingParty: The encounter with the Leviathan kills most of the crew of the ''Ulysses''; each step of their journey to Atlantis further thins their party until few more than the [[PlotArmor main characters]] are left.
* DyingRace: The Atlanteans, [[spoiler:though they start to redevelop their society at the end of the first movie]].
* EldritchAbomination: The sequel gives us [[KrakenAndLeviathan the Kraken]], a giant squid-like beastie with a fish-like face and the ability to offer immortality to anyone who [[DealWithTheDevil makes a deal with it]] and hypnotize people as well. The Leviathan is a mechanical version.
* EmbarrassingSlide: Milo intends to start his lecture by showing a slide of the Leviathan, "a creature so terrifying that sailors were said [[GoMadFromTheRevelation to be driven mad by the mere sight of it]]." Cut to a slide of him popping up, wearing a onesie bathing suit, duckie inner tube, and arm floaties.
* EmergencyCargoDump: After one of the balloons is punctured, [[spoiler:Rourke]] tells [[spoiler:Helga]] to lighten the load. She throws every loose item on the balloon overboard. When she runs outof things to toss overboard, [[spoiler:Rourke]] pushes her off.
* EmpathyDollShot: Kida drops her doll during the destruction of Atlantis. Her mother stops to tell her to leave it, even though they're no more than three steps away from it.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Just about every main character gets one of these. For Milo himself, we're introduced to him giving a passionate speech about Atlantis to an audience of teddy bears in top hats in preparation for a meeting with the board of the museum he works in. He is then immediately screwed over by said board.
* EstablishingSeriesMoment: Within ''seconds'' of the opening logos, we get a FantasticNuke explosion and the very first line of dialogue is (in Atlantean) "You fool! [[ApocalypseHow You've destroyed us all!]]" Not exactly [[DarkerAndEdgier your traditional Disney fare]], for sure.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Robbing graves? Fine. Plundering tombs? Fine. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Double-parking?]] Fine. [[spoiler:Stealing the only thing keeping the last remnants of Atlantean civilization alive AND hurting someone they know, on top of that? Prompts a group HeelFaceTurn.]]
* EverythingMakesAMushroom: ''Cookie's cooking'' does this when disposed of in a fire.
* EvilPlan: [[spoiler:From the very beginning Rourke has been planning to steal the Heart of Atlantis, and is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way]].
* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Earlier in the film, Milo comments how the Shepherd's Journal mentions something called "The Heart of Atlantis", but it abruptly cuts off. He muses that it's "almost like there's a missing page". Then, after Milo and Kida discover the truth about the Heart of Atlantis...
-->'''Kida:''' Then, where is it now?\\
'''Milo:''' I don't know. I don't—you think something this important would've been in the Journal, but—! Unless... ''the missing page''.
* FacelessMooks: The gas-mask wearing soldiers in the end.
* FamilyBusiness: Both Audrey and Vinny are part of one.
* FamilyFriendlyFirearms: Averted. Period accurate weapons are used frequently.
* FanDisservice: In-universe. Mrs. Packard says she sleeps in the nude, and Sweet throws Milo a sleep mask, explaining that she sleepwalks.
* FanServicePack: It's quite convenient that the fireflies would attack the camp while everyone's asleep, meaning they spend the rest of the film wearing less clothing. Rourke, Milo, Vinnie and Sweet lose their modest tops to be replaced by flattering vests. Audrey also loses her baggy sleeves and Helga loses the coat in favour of a tank top.
* {{Fauxshadowing}}: [[spoiler:After Mole comments on how the dormant volcano will only erupt in reaction to an explosion of great magnitude, everyone stares at Vinny, who is tinkering with a time bomb. When the volcano ''does'' erupt, however, Vinny has nothing to do with it; in fact, he lampshades this.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[spoiler:Rourke]] as the story continues further. Notably, as they get closer to Atlantis, his demeanor becomes less "military commander" and more like a jovial uncle who is always cracking jokes even when he's threatening Milo or the King. Even when he throws Helga to suit his own greed, he cheerfully declares it NothingPersonal without any sense of regret whatsoever.
* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler:Helga]] is pretty, convincing, and dangerous, and certainly not friendly.
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: When Milo convinces Vinny, Audrey, Cookie, Mrs. Packard, and Mole to come to their senses just as [[spoiler: Rourke and Helga]] are about to leave with [[spoiler: the crystallized Kida,]] and thus allowing them to turn against [[spoiler: Rourke and Helga]] and side with Milo instead, while [[spoiler: Rourke and Helga]] responding by stranding them and destroying the only bridge in and out of Atlantis, Dr. Sweet isn't there, only showing up to warn Milo that [[spoiler: the King is now on his last legs before dying.]] This is because Sweet turned against [[spoiler: Rourke and Helga]] before [[spoiler: Kida gets crystallized]], having witnessed [[spoiler: Rourke]] fatally injure the King.
* FiringOneHanded: [[spoiler:During the climax, Rourke fires a Lewis gun one-handed until Vinny shoots it out of his hand.]]
* FlightIsTheFinalPower: The unique energy emitted by the Atlantean crystals is shown to have many applications throughout the film, such as creating unusual lifeforms, illuminating dark places and granting its bearers longevity. Milo enthusiastically attempts to use them as fuel for an ancient flying vehicle so he can explore the city from above, but reconsiders when he accidentally causes the machine to crash. Later on, the heroes collectively decide to try again and take flight to pursue the BigBad, setting the stage for the final battle.
* FlyAtTheCameraEnding: Ends with an Atlantean flying machine obscuring the camera.
* TheFogOfAges: The Atlanteans have lost much of their culture over the centuries; none of the modern-day Atlanteans can even read their own writing. Kida even observes this and requests Milo's help in teaching them their old ways.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** It moves so fast it's hard to tell, but in the cataclysm that opens the film, the Leviathan is the leading Atlantean vehicle in the convoy, and in fact flies ''directly'' into the camera, long before it gets any plot relevance.
** When Whitmore shows off the scale models of the vehicles to be used in the expedition, Milo is seen fiddling with the hot air balloon model. [[spoiler:Milo later has his climactic battle with Rourke on the real thing.]]
** There is quite a bit of it towards [[spoiler:Rourke's true nature]].
*** As mentioned in the DVD commentary, when Whitmore shows the files of the crew, [[spoiler:Rourke's photo is partially covered-up. All the good guys' photos are fully uncovered.]]
*** When the characters are getting on the boat, Rourke says the trip "will be enriching for all of us". [[spoiler:Pillaging Atlantis for dollars was his motive for joining the expedition all along.]]
*** When Helga comments to Rourke that there being people alive in Atlantis "changes everything", he replies, "This changes ''nothing''". For first-time viewers, this lack of concern about the Atlanteans could be attributed to him being in grief over the death of the crew and him, somewhat rightfully, considering them responsible for it. [[spoiler:After you know how greedy and ruthless he is, though...]]
** Kida's true age is foreshadowed once by the King ("A thousand years ago you would have struck them down.").
** After [[spoiler:Rourke]] shows his true colors and starts interrogating the King, the latter feebly warns him that he'll destroy himself. Later in the Crystal Chamber, the Heart senses [[spoiler:Rourke's]] presence and seemingly glows red with rage. Then when Kida becomes the Crystal's host, Milo warns not to touch her. Of course, [[spoiler:Rourke fails to heed any of these warnings and [[KarmicDeath pays for his greed]] [[BodyHorror in nightmarish fashion.]]]]
* FreezeFrameBonus:
** When the opening cataclysm hits Atlantis and the people in the outer villages get trapped outside the magical barrier, one guy (possibly one of the soldiers from the Hammerhead ships) [[FaceDeathWithDignity takes his hat off as he stands facing the wave]], while several other families hug each other tightly, preparing for the end.
** The crew dossiers that Whitmore lays out while introducing them to Milo contain their complete biographies and are full of hidden details, such as [[BeenThereShapedHistory Audrey's work at Henry Ford Automotive]], [[GadgeteerGenius Mole having developed or invented 62 types of mining equipment]] and [[MysteriousAntarctica Rourke being involved in discovery and destruction of Shub Nigruth, lost city in Antarctica]
** During the scene in which the leviathan attacks, Mrs. Packard can be seen opening a crime novel and trying to read even as she relays communications for the rest of the panicked crew.
** Those two {{Mauve Shirt}}s who just make it through the flooding hallway before Audrey slams the door are the pilots of the last heavy sub that gets [[ShootTheShaggyDog destroyed by the Leviathan.]]
** When the ''Ulysses'' descends into the ocean, a crewman can be seen grinning and waving at the camera almost immediately after Milo goes out of frame.
* FreudianSlip: "I know how to swim pretty girl -- ''good''! Pretty good, I swim pretty good."
* FrothyMugsOfWater: Averted, as Cookie includes whiskey in his personal list of the four basic food groups.
* GasMaskMooks: The soldiers that come along on the expedition. A prudent measure, given it is an underground expedition with a real risk of gas pockets and the climax takes place inside [[spoiler:a magma chamber of a volcano about to erupt]].
* GassyGastronomy: Implied in one of the P.A. announcements on the ship, as read by [[DeadpanSnarker Mrs. Packard]].
-->'''Mrs. Packard:''' ''[reading]'' "Attention: Tonight's supper will be baked beans, musical program to follow." ''[{{Beat}}]'' [[WhoWritesThisCrap Who wrote this?]]
* GilliganCut: Milo is so excited he can't hold it in. Cue VomitDiscretionShot.
* GlassesCuriosity: Kida takes and wears Milo's glasses while showing him around Atlantis for the first time due to never having seen the object until now.
* GoingNative: [[spoiler:Milo at the end of the film.]]
* {{Golem}}: The Guardians of Atlantis; unlike the Leviathan, they serve a ''defensive'' purpose, generating a deflector shield to protect the center of Atlantis, both from the cataclysm at the beginning and the [[spoiler:exploding volcano at the end]].
* TheGreatDepression: It's revealed in passing during the direct-to-video "sequel" that its events take place shortly after the Stock Market Crash, well over 15 years after the movie...with no one changing or aging at all in the intervening time, thanks to the longevity crystals they brought back from Atlantis.
* HatsOffToTheDead: The team hold a brief memorial service for the lives lost to the Leviathan, during which Commander Rourke takes off his hat. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out that he cares nothing about lives lost beyond his own.]]
* HeartOfTheMatter: The Heart of Atlantis is mentioned in the Shepherd's Journal, and is speculated to be some sort of power source. It turns out to be [[spoiler:a living crystal that is keeping the entire city and its inhabitants alive after millennia beneath the bottom of the ocean. Rourke plans to take it and sell it above ground, not only dooming the Atlanteans but also risking it falling into the wrong hands and causing mass devastation; it was the King trying to harness it as a weapon that caused Atlantis to sink in the first place]].
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:Helga shows some remorse when she discovers that they will be stealing from living people and not a long-dead civilization, but she goes along with Rourke's plan...at least until he turns on her. It's not clear if this would have been enough to make her side with Milo, though, since she doesn't survive the final battle.]]
* HeelFaceTurn:
** [[spoiler:Vinny, Audrey, Sweet, Mole, Cookie, and Mrs. Packard may have been OnlyInItForTheMoney, but unlike Rourke they're not willing to resort to murder.]]
** [[spoiler:Sweet's moment comes earlier than the rest. Note that he's not with the rest of the party as they're preparing to leave with the crystal--he's already staying behind to take care of the dying king]].
* HellIsThatNoise: The incredibly ominous metallic moans and roars the Leviathan makes while hunting the ''Ulysses'' through the undersea trench. Especially terrifying is when Packard puts it on over the intercom, and the ''entire'' crew is shown to be freaked out and unsettled by the sound of it.
* HighHeelFaceTurn: DoubleSubverted. [[spoiler:Although Helga's not the only woman in the crew, she's the most conventionally feminine and as the BigBad's right-hand woman, she fits the traditional model for this trope more than anyone else. Which makes it all the more surprising when she's the only one of the named crew ''not'' to [[HeelFaceTurn desert Rourke out of disgust.]] At least until Rourke [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness chucks her off the zeppelin.]] Hey, wait a second...[[TheDogBitesBack doesn't she still have that flare gun?]]]]
* TheHighQueen: Kida's mother. [[spoiler:And Kida herself [[BookEnds at the end.]]]]
* HindenburgIncendiaryPrinciple: [[spoiler:Helga brings down Rourke's airship with a flare gun. A fictional 1914-era balloon could very reasonably use hydrogen for buoyancy, although a flare gun having enough penetration to pierce the balloon is more questionable.]]
* HonorBeforeReason: Milo's decision to [[spoiler:stop the older and very-experienced-in-warfare Rourke from taking Kida and the source of Atlantis's power.]] He even says so himself.
-->'''Milo:''' I didn't say it was the smart thing, but it is the right thing.
* IDrankWhat: Done with a canteen of what Vinny claims to be nitroglycerin as a joke.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: When the ''Ulysses'' engineering compartments start to flood, Audrey prevents the leakage from getting out of hand and drowning more people by sealing off the damaged section, with at least one engineer still inside.
%%* IKnowWhatWeCanDoCut
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: When looking for a stolen clay vase, Milo mentions they are looking for a crate and the villain claims he hasn't seen any pottery in a crate. When Milo gets outside, he points out he specifically didn't say there was pottery in the missing crate. Oops.
* ImmortalityField: The lives of the citizens of Atlantis are prolonged by a piece of a comet which they call the "Heart of Atlantis."
* InexplicableLanguageFluency: The Atlanteans are able to fluently communicate with the explorers from the surface in English and French. This is handwaved as their own language being a precursor to all other languages.
* InformedAbility: Audrey is said to be a brilliant mechanic, but we never actually see her fix anything throughout the film. She even gets upstaged by Milo at one point for fixing the digger's boiler, because the boiler in his office is similar.
* InsistentTerminology: Quoth [[spoiler:Rourke]]: "Mercenary? I prefer the term ''adventure capitalist''."
* InstantRunes: Any and every Atlantean machine lights up with a luminous pattern of runes (and TronLines) when it's activated.
* IronicEcho:
** When the crew sets up camp for the night and talking about their lives, all of them except Milo say that they're here pretty much because they're getting paid. [[spoiler:Later, when they're loading the Crystal-possessed Kida up for the trip back to the volcano, Milo reminds them of their plans and how easy they'll be now, but they have wiped out the Atlanteans in the process, ending with-]]
--->'''Milo:''' [[spoiler:But that's what it's all about, right? Money.]]
** [[spoiler:As Rourke and Helga attempt to escape with the crystallized Kida, Rourke betrays Helga and throws her off the zeppelin, after which Rourke yells to her, "NothingPersonal!" Much later, as Helga lies on the ground, dying from her wounds, she gets revenge by pulling out her flare gun to shoot down the zeppelin, though not before throwing Rourke's words right back]].
* {{Irony}}: Disney was expecting this film to be their big 2D hit for 2001, but the film performed under expectations, causing Disney's smaller 2D movie of the year, ''WesternAnimation/RecessSchoolsOut'', to be a bigger success[[note]]''Atlantis'' made more money, but because ''Recess: School's Out'' was made on a lower budget, the box office returns were more successful[[/note]]. In Finland, the VHS and DVD of ''Atlantis'' contained the ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' premiere episode ("The Break In/The New Kid") as a bonus.
* {{Jerkass}}: The Museum Board of directors. They are nothing but rude to Milo and mistreat him over his belief in Atlantis. They moved his presentation to request funding for an expedition to a time that had already passed just to reject him and claim he has potential and they need him but keep him in the basement just to take care of the heater.
* JerkassGods: Kida states that the Atlanteans were banished underwater because their gods grew jealous of Atlantis' wealth and power. The ''real'' reason the city sank, however, is because [[spoiler:Kida's father attempted to use the Heart of Atlantis as a weapon against enemy nations. The Heart, being sentient, did NOT take it well.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** Mr Hacourt despite being mean towards Milo wasn't exactly wrong to tell Milo that he could be wasting his time looking for a place that may or not exist.
** While not exactly cruel, Sweet did admit him & his friends were a bit hard on Milo & decide to befriend him.
** Rourke was right to admit that Milo did lead the team to Atlantis. If Milo hadn't, the gang wouldn't had obtained the crystal.
* JumpScare:
** [[spoiler:Rourke is petrified! Hooray, the villain has been killed in a relatively family-friendly]] '''[[spoiler:oh god it lives!]]'''
** "Helmsman! Bring us about! Tighten our search pattern and-" [[spoiler:''[entire ship shakes as the Leviathan hits it]'' ]]
* {{Kaiju}}: The Leviathan, the [[TentacledTerror Kraken]], Ymir and Sutr all count, though the Leviathan is really a [[spoiler:GiantMecha]].
* KarmaHoudini:
** [[spoiler:All the specialists who took part in Rourke's plan that ends with the King of Atlantis dead, all so they can steal the Heart of Atlantis, are EasilyForgiven (and very richly rewarded) for having a last minute twinge of conscience. Granted, they initially thought they were just going to be doing some elaborate grave-robbing from a long-dead civilization. Murder wasn't on their to-do list.]]
** The Leviathan is a non-human example, having massacred nearly all of the 200-man crew aboard the ''Ulysses'', and for all we know, it's still out there preying on unsuspecting trespassers.
* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:When Rourke has gotten the crystal, removed Atlantean opposition and is ready to leave the city he turns and knocks Milo down just for the hell of it. And he crushes Milo's picture of Thaddeus under his heel.]]
* KindheartedCatLover: Milo has a white cat named Fluffy. [[spoiler:Audrey seems to have adopted her in the end]].
* KindaBusyHere: This exchange which happens after the ''Ulysses'' is damaged and starts taking on water and Rourke gives the order to AbandonShip:
-->'''Helga:''' Packard, sound the alarm!\\
'''Packard:''' ''[on the phone]'' And he took his suitcase? Marge, honey, I don't think he's coming back!\\
'''Helga:''' PACKARD!\\
'''Packard:''' Gonna have to call you back. ''[slight pause]'' No, no, I'll call you.
* KirbyDots: The Leviathan's energy weapon. Discussed by the director on the commentary track.
* KnightOfCerebus: For about the first half hour or so, the film is a fun, mostly harmless pulp adventure story. Then the Leviathan shows up and promptly [[CurbStompBattle destroys the]] ''[[CoolShip Ulysses]]'' [[CurbStompBattle and kills 90% of the crew]] in 5 minutes flat.
* TheLadette: Audrey and implied with her sister, because their father wanted boys. Helga, while she is introduced as TheVamp, is a competent quasi-military leader and fighter.
* LastBreathBullet: [[spoiler:Helga. Well, {{flare|Gun}} anyway.]]
* LastSecondPhotoFailure: In a Deleted Scene, a photographer is taking pictures of the crew inside the cave that leads to Atlantis when they are attacked by bat-like creatures, the photos showing the ensuing chaos.
* LaymansTerms:
-->'''Milo:''' I don't know how to explain it! It's their deity, their power source!\\
'''Rourke:''' Speak English, professor!
** Also:
--->'''Mole:''' The fissure! It is about to eject its pyroclastic fury!\\
'''Sweet:''' Milo! Mole says the volcano's about to blow!
* LethalChef: Cookie, who puts sickening amounts of lard in his food. When the team dumps his food into the campfire, it creates a miniature ''mushroom cloud''.
-->'''Cookie:''' ''[holding a head of lettuce]'' What is ''this''?\\
'''Helga:''' That would be lettuce.\\
'''Cookie:''' Lettuce!? LETTUCE!?\\
'''Helga:''' It's a vegetable. The men need their four basic food groups.\\
'''Cookie:''' ''[holding up three fingers]'' I ''got'' yer four basic food groups: beans, bacon, whiskey, an' lard!
* LivingProp: The Gas mask-wearing soldiers appear suddenly after the explosion of the Ulysses. They don't really interact with any of the main characters and are all promptly killed off at the end.
* LivingOutAChildhoodDream: Linguist Milo Thatch has dreamed of finishing the quest for Atlantis that his grandfather started since he was young, but is still stuck in the boiler room of the Smithsonian, where he works as an janitor. It takes an old friend of his grandfather's funding an expedition for Milo to live out his dream.
* TheLoad: Milo is ''seen'' this way by many of the expedition members - and he certainly causes enough problems to justify the view. Once his skill set comes into play, the trope is defied.
* LostWorld: Duh.
* LovecraftCountry: The small fishing village in the second movie.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M-Z]]
* MagicalNegro: Joshua Sweet could be considered a mild example of this, he's the most outwardly nice to Milo out of the whole crew, [[spoiler:[[TokenGoodTeammate the first to turn on Rourke]], and the first to definitively throw his lot in with Milo in the climax.]]
* {{Mayincatec}}: The Atlantean ruins (and runes) have more than a whiff of this, especially when their TronLines become visible. This is a deliberate invocation of the trope, since Atlantis is supposed to have been the inspiration for those later cultures.
* MayDecemberRomance: It's hard to tell, considering everyone in Atlantis has white hair, but the King looks substantially older than his wife in the prologue.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: Milo and ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Kida. Although, if [[spoiler:the Atlantean's crystal power source is what makes them live so long]], you never know...
* MechanicalMonster: The Leviathan.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Averted to an almost ahistorical extent. The crew of the ''Ulysses'' clearly has a good number of women among its crew, [[note]]Including in combat roles, the dude in the sub pod who shouts "We're getting killed out here!" has a female copilot [[/note]] and very few, if any, are seen to have escaped its destruction. Rourke's eulogy specifically mentions that the crew had "some of the finest men and women I've ever known." [[spoiler:Rourke's GasMaskMooks in the climax are ''assumed'' to be all male, but they wear heavy, full-body coats and don't speak, so we can't say that for certain.]]
* MightyWhitey: Downplayed. The Atlanteans' technology is far more sophisticated than the surface-dwellers', but few of them actually remember how to make it work, and it takes the intervention of a white researcher to bring this knowledge back.
* MineralMacGuffin: The Heart of Atlantis, seeing as [[spoiler:it's the fabled power source that the expedition has searching for all along.]]
* AMinorKidroduction: The film opens on the destruction of Atlantis, which took place when Kida was still a child.
* MissingMom: Follow the Disney rule of having the princess raised by only one parent: the film begins with Kida's mom being taken from her and her father.
* MoleMen: Mole.
* MotorMouth:
** Sweet talks faster than the other characters. In fact, his actor's rapid-fire delivery of lines made animating him somewhat difficult.
** Milo speaks so fast he's almost unintelligible in one or two scenes.
* MultinationalTeam: The crew for the expedition is multiethnic in 1914, no less. Audrey's inclusion made this the only film in Disney's canon to have a [[LeastCommonSkinTone Hispanic human character]] voiced by a Hispanic actor (or in this case, actress) until ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', which had Honey Lemon, another Hispanic girl, in its main cast.
* MysticalWhiteHair: Almost all of the Atlanteans have naturally white hair regardless of age.
* NeverSayDie:
** Pretty cleverly worked around in the scene where [[spoiler:Rourke]] is interrogating the King of Atlantis. At one point, he punches the King in the gut for not cooperating, and an enraged Kida (who is being held captive by [[spoiler:Rourke]]'s men) starts threatening him in Atlantean. The official comic book adaption translates her words to 'I will kill you for that.'
** Elsewhere, death and references to it are pretty straightforward.
--->'''Rourke:''' All right, who's ''not'' dead? Sound off!
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Milo realizes towards the end of the film that a lot of the problems, maybe even ''all'' the problems, are at least tangentially his fault.
-->'''Milo:''' Oh, ''my'' decision? Well, I think we've seen how effective ''my'' decisions have been. Let's recap. I led a band of plundering vandals to the greatest archeological find in recorded history, thus enabling the kidnap and/or murder of the ''royal family''! Not to mention personally delivering the most powerful force known to man to the hands of a ''mercenary NUTCASE'', who's probably gonna sell it to the ''[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI KAISER]]!'' '''HAVE I LEFT ANYTHING OUT?!'''\\
'''Sweet:''' [[SarcasmBlind Well, you did set the camp on fire and drop us down that big hole]].
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Rourke is hit by this big time when he hurls Helga off the balloon simply for the short-term gain of reducing the weight to ensure his own escape (and to give himself a bigger share of the fortune); instead, she survives just long enough to fire her flare gun and send the balloon and his prize crashing back down in flames.
* NobodyPoops: Averted. Milo accidentally awakens some [[PlayingWithFire fire]][[StealthPun flies]] while heading out to relieve himself.
* NonHumanSidekick: Averted, but Mole is called an animal and a pet by Kida, to which Milo replies, "Close enough".
* NonLethalWarfare: Averted. The Leviathan kills well over a hundred people during its attack (visibly crushing their mini-subs in its claws) and the final battle features plenty of {{Mooks}} being blown up.
* NonsenseClassification: Cookie has his own take on the four basic food groups: beans, bacon, whiskey and lard. A deleted scene has him name the only three spices he uses: salt, salt, and [[ExpospeakGag sodium chloride]].
* NoodleIncident: Mole's background. Sweet is sorry he ever heard it from Audrey, and forbids her to tell Milo. According to some of the promotional material released before the film, it involves literally ''living in the Paris catacombs/sewers'' where he was raised by naked mole rats. The sequel has this line in reference to Mole: "What else can you expect from a guy who grew up with naked mole rats?"
* NotThatKindOfDoctor: Kida had some trouble grasping the notion that not all doctors are medics.
* NothingIsScarier: Used when the [[EldritchAbomination Leviathan]] is stalking the ''Ulysses'' through the underwater caves. The audience sees it clearly, but the characters don't, cranking up the suspense until the inevitable happens.
-->'''Helga:''' Well, whatever it was, [[TemptingFate it's gone now.]]\\
'''Rourke:''' Helmsman! Bring us about! Tighten our search pattern and- [[spoiler:'''''[[JumpScare BOOM]]''''' ]]
* NothingPersonal: Used twice as a PreMortemOneLiner, [[spoiler:after Rourke kicks Helga off his zeppelin]] and then [[IronicEcho repeated]] when [[spoiler:Helga fires the FlareGun at the zeppelin. In her case, it's probably BlatantLies]].
* NubileSavage: Convenient, that Kida fits Western beauty standards despite belonging to a culture isolated for millennia. The "savage" part however, only applies in that their culture is pre-historical in age.
* NuclearCandle: Averted. Rourke lights a match in a dark chasm and it's only bright enough to light his face. Nothing else can be seen until everyone turns their vehicles' headlights on.
* OceanOfAdventure: The first part of the movie follows a team of explorers trying to find and prove the existence of the sunken city of Atlantis; they begin by traveling to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine, traversing a graveyard of ships and being pursued by a Leviathan that guards the entrance to Atlantis (which can be reached via a long series of underground tunnels and caverns accessible only underwater).
* OhCrap:
** The entire crew of the ''Ulysses'' [[MassOhCrap shits themselves simultaneously]] when Packard puts the [[HellIsThatNoise Leviathan's call]] on over the radio.
** There's such a moment for Milo, Audrey, Sweet and Vinnie when they realize the final battle has brought on a volcanic eruption.
** Most of the main team members when they realize their leader plans to ''commit genocide''.
* {{Omniglot}}: The Atlanteans are implied to be fluent in every single language spoken in the world in addition to their own language. When the expedition first enters Atlantis, Milo and Kida converse in several different languages (including the Atlantean, Latin, Hebrew and French) before settling on English for the rest of the film.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: During the king and Milo's discussion on his deathbed, we flash back to the opening scene of the film, as the king explains what happened.
* OneTwoSkipAFew: Rourke threatens to shoot the Atlantean King on the count of ten if he doesn't reveal the location of the Heart of Atlantis, skipping to nine right after two. Right as he reaches ten, [[spoiler:he realizes that the rock symbol in the pond in the front of the throne is the entrance to the Heart, and puts the gun down.]]
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Milo aside, everyone on the expedition is this, [[spoiler:especially Rourke]].
-->'''Milo:''' You don't know what you're tampering with!
-->'''[[spoiler: Rourke:]]''' What's to know? It's big, it's shiny, it's gonna make us all rich.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Milo was [[RaisedByGrandparents raised by his grandfather]] Thaddeus Thatch after his parents died when he was a boy.
* TheOutsiderBefriendsTheBest: Despite his famous explorer relative, Milo Thatch is a neglected museum worker who is ridiculed by the higher ups for his fancy notions about the legend of Atlantis (which turn out to be true, in-universe). His expertise in reading and translating ancient languages is what gets him recruited by an eccentric millionaire to an expedition to the lost continent. When the crew reaches Atlantis, it is Milo's language skills that allow the group to mingle with the local Atlanteans, and eventually Milo befriends (and falls in love with) Kidagakash (Kida), the long-lived princess of Atlantis.
* ParentService: Helga's introduction.
* ParentalBonus: Many of the voice actors (especially Don Novello) and references to people like Jefferson Davis and P.T. Barnum.
* PerpetualFrowner: Helga is generally scowling.
* PetsHomageName: Milo was originally going to have a pet rat named Plato.
* PhosphorEssence: [[spoiler:Kida glows blue when she merges with the Heart of Atlantis]].
* PlotArmor: The Leviathan attack sequence noticeably plays out in a way so that ''only two'' smaller submarines ultimately survive, one smaller subpod, and one larger subpod, and only one of each contains the main characters (and their equipment, likely contained within the larger subpod). Go on. Guess which of those subpods are the only ones that remain after the Leviathan destroys the rest.
* PlotBasedPhotographObfuscation: When Whitmore is showing Milo the files of each of the crew members, [[spoiler:Rourke has his face partially obscured]] while everyone else's is not, hinting that he turns out to be the BigBad.
* PlotTriggeringBook: When Whitmore, a friend of Milo's late grandfather hands him the Shepherd's Journal, a book reportedly written by someone who found it in Atlantean language and has information about the legendary lost Atlantis and how to find it, Milo then becomes part of an expedition to Atlantis, interpreting the book's information to lead them to it.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory:
** An ethnically diverse crew of explorers... in 1914! Justified in that the core were mercenaries - which put petty little things like ethnicity aside in the Search for More Money - and the crew was assembled by Whitmore, who was a certifiable awesome nutcase.
** Audrey's sister competing in boxing, let alone having a genuine title shot (presumably against a man), would have been extremely unusual for the time, yet is barely remarked on.
* PovertyFood: Jebidiah "Cookie" Farnsworth serves up lumpy ooze to the survivors, who have no alternative except to choke it down. Cookie earlier stated that the four food groups are: "beans, bacon, whiskey and lard", thus dinner looks to be some unholy mixture of those ingredients.
* PowerCrystal: The Heart of Atlantis, the power source and deity of Atlantis.
* PrimordialTongue: The Atlantean language is presented as this, and demonstrated when Kida and some other Atlanteans are able to learn several modern languages after just hearing snippets of them.
* PunchCatch:
** [[spoiler:At the climax, Milo tries to punch Rourke, only for Rourke to catch it and slam Milo's own hand back into his face. Justified in that Milo is a scrawny bookworm, and Rourke is a fit, trained fighter.]]
** [[spoiler:Rourke also uses this technique to throw Helga off the balloon, only this time it's more of a ''Kick'' Catch.]]
* PunkPunk: SteamPunk explorers vs. SandalPunk Atlanteans.
* PunnyName:
** ''Mol''-iere is the TunnelKing (see above).
** A Mol(e) is also a unit of measurement in Chemistry, and Mole is seen speaking in scientific terms for chemistry on several occasions (about dirt, obviously).
** The communications officer is Ms. Packard. Packard Bell was a radio manufacturer back around the time the movie took place. (In fact, the creators say Ms. Packard actually ''is'' the same Packard in Packard Bell!)
** LT. L(yle) T. Rourke
** Vinny's last name is Santorini. Santorini is the modern-day name of the island of Thera, which is theorized to have been the inspiration for Atlantis in Plato's dialogues. It was home to the Minoan civilization, which, while not supernaturally so, was advanced for its day until the island was destroyed in a volcanic eruption. This makes his position as the group's explosives expert especially apt.
* ReadingIsCoolAesop: Kida struggles to explain to Milo why their culture is rotting from within. Then it becomes apparent. ''Their own writing'' has become lost knowledge.
* ReadTheMapUpsideDown: During their expedition to find the lost city, the team comes across two paths. Upon examining the journal, Milo points to the left path. However the left path has a monster that the team backs away from immediately. Upon examining the journal again, Milo notices his mistake and points to the right path.
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Averted with Milo; who frequently stutters, repeats himself, or stumbles over words[[note]]This is probably due to being voiced by Creator/MichaelJFox, who, even before his diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease (which would be enough to push one's speech into that territory on its own) naturally delivered his lines like this. Just watch ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'', which was over five years before the first symptoms manifested)[[/note]]. Justified in-universe, as he's an anxious character adventuring for the first time.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Atlanteans are positively ancient due to the restorative powers of the Heart of Atlantis. Kida herself is over 8,800 years old and still appears in her early 20's.
* TheReasonISuckSpeech: Milo, when Sweet announces he is ready to follow him on his decision.
-->'''Milo:''' Oh, my decision? I think we've seen how effective my decisions have been. Let's recap: I lead a band of plundering vandals to the greatest archaeological find in recorded history, thus enabling the kidnap and/or murder of the royal family, not to mention personally delivering the most powerful force known to man into the hands of a mercenary nutcase who's probably gonna sell it to the [[SuddenlyShouting KAISER! HAVE I LEFT ANYTHING OUT?!]]
-->'''Sweet:''' Well, you did set the camp on fire and drop us down that big hole.
-->'''Milo:''' Thank you! Thank you very much.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Milo sarcastically gives one to Audrey, Mole, Vinny, Cookie and Ms. Packard when he tells them that they don't want the death of others to be on their conscience.
* RedShirtArmy: The submarine crew just keeps dying and dying. Between drowning, blowing up, wildfires, falling down a crevice, getting shot, and molten lava, only the main cast ''of seven'' survives the voyage. In total, 193 of the original 200 crew members died on the mission, which is quite a whopping number for a Disney movie.
-->'''Rourke:''' ''[talking to only a few dozen people]'' Seven hours ago we started this expedition with two hundred of the finest men and women I have ever known. We are all that's left.
* RestrictedRescueOperation: The shield that Kida's mother creates to protect Atlantis is shown to only cover the center of the city, leaving people slamming their fists on the shield wall as the waves crash over.
* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Rourke is a mercenary planning to take the Heart of Atlantis, even at the cost of the Atlantean people's lives. What's more, everyone on the team except Milo has been in on this plan the whole time, which is kind of shocking for a Disney movie. The main cast all do a HeelFaceTurn though]].
* RewatchBonus: The cataclysm that opens the movie becomes much more horrifying when you recognize the first Atlantean vehicles in line fleeing from the explosion: ''[[TheWorfEffect a formation of four]] '''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Leviathans]]'''''.
** The crew volunteering Milo to talk to Kida just seems like a humorous moment on first watch [[spoiler:until you realise what Rourke's real intentions were, and realise that actually it was probably just a good way of keeping Milo and Kida out of the way while the crew armed themselves.]]
* RockOfLimitlessWater: In a sense. The directors' commentary describes Atlantis' giant volcanic cavern as a closed system: water falls to the magma-heated bottom of the cave, rises as steam, falls as rain onto the city's plateau, and finally flows as waterfalls back to the magma.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Kida. She's first seen as a member of the Atlantean scouting group covertly observing the expedition crew, then later enlists Milo into helping her revive Atlantis' culture.
* SadlyMythtaken: The idea that Atlantis was a culturally-rich society and had advanced technology is a relatively recent addition to the myth. Plato simply described it as an unbeatable naval power.
* ScareChord: The ''Ulysses'' is traveling through an underground cavern, filled with the wreckage of sea ships from every known naval era. We get a noticeable spike in the score when the searchlights of the ''Ulysses'' sweep across a part of the sea floor...[[NothingIsScarier and it]] ''[[NothingIsScarier moves.]]''
* SceneryPorn: Atlantis is ''gorgeous''.
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Milo has this attitude all along - as does Dr. Sweet, as it turns out. The more sympathetic members of the expedition adopt this attitude after Milo sets a moral example.
* SecretTestOfCharacter:
** When Mr. Whitmore first gives Milo the Shepherd's Journal, he makes several doubtful comments as to its authenticity and reliability, as well as to the futility of any mission to find Atlantis. When Milo says he would ''know'' if it was a fake and declares that he would rent a rowboat himself if that was what it took to get an expedition going, Whitmore explains that that was exactly what he wanted to hear, and offers Milo a place on the multi-million dollar expedition he had already been planning.
** In the sequel, the Dust Coyotes will spare the heroes the fate they dealt to the villain if they confess a secret they have kept. [[spoiler:As it turns out, had they revealed the secret (about Atlantis existing), the Dust Coyotes (who knew the secret anyway) would have concluded they cannot be trusted to keep secrets and would have punished them accordingly.]]
* SeeWater: Milo can read Atlantean glyphs underwater, while wearing glasses.
* SerratedBladeOfPain: The team's medic is quite fond of a large medical saw of his. Later said saw is used in the climax.
* {{Sexophone}}: When we first meet Helga in Milo's apartment.
* SheCleansUpNicely:
** Inverted. Milo first meets Helga dolled up in a sexy dress. Later on he does the gasp and double take when he sees her on the expedition dressed casually (though not [[MaleGaze for the same reasons]]).
** A straighter version with the main cast at the end, when they're all dressed in new, expensive clothes after we've only seen them in work/travel clothes for the duration of the film.
* SherlockScan: Moliere discerns pretty much everything about Milo simply by examining a piece of dirt under his fingernails. In the sequel, he uses this skill to find secret locations and navigate by matching dirt samples with geographical locales.
* ShoutOut:
** The ''Ulysses'' screams of Jules Verne influence. It's important to note that ''Atlantis: The Lost Empire'' was partly inspired by ''20,000 Leagues Under the Sea''. Speaking of which, the idea of having to go into the Earth itself to find Atlantis came from ''Journey to the Center of the Earth''.[[note]]Interestingly enough, this film started out as an animated adaptation of that book.[[/note]]
** Milo's explanation of the boiler's finer workings is one to Creator/DonKnotts, according to the commentary.
* SidingWithTheSuffering: Much of [[BigBad Rourke's]] crew (save Helga and the FacelessGoons) initially started at his side [[OnlyInItForTheMoney for the reward of finding Atlantis]], until he begins hurting its people and Milo. In addition, Milo [[WhatTheHellHero guilts them]] for bringing a lost civilization to extinction for monetary reasons.
* SinisterShiv: [[spoiler: Milo's shiv is a glass shard that is empowered by the Heart of Atlantis when Rourke smashes the window at the Crystal's container, which he uses to slash at Rourke's arm to free himself from the latter's grasp and unintentionally turn him into a crystal monster.]]
* StandardFemaleGrabArea: Helga holds Kida by the upper arm while she's captive, though Kida only submits due to the threat of being shot if she tries to get loose.
* StealthPun: Before the expedition sets off, Rourke says, "This should be enriching for all of us."
* {{Steampunk}} / {{Dieselpunk}} : Thanks to Mike Mignola's involvement. The submarine also bears a passing resemblance to the steampunk ''Nautilus'' from Disney's own ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea''.
* StuffBlowingUp: Vinny loves explosives... but not to the point of being a BombThrowingAnarchist.
* SuckOutThePoison: Everybody has fallen down a cave shaft into the dark. People start to sound off that they're not dead. Cookie the Chef says that something bit him and someone's gonna have to suck the venom out. By the groans, we get the feeling that nobody's exactly jumping into a line. Given that Cookie's a curmudgeonly old man who serves inedible slop three times a day, and that his exact words were, "Dang lightnin' bugs done bit me on my sit-upon. Somebody's gonna have to suck out this poison."...
* SymbioticPossession: [[spoiler:Crystal/Kida.]]
* TakeAMomentToCatchYourDeath: [[FreezeFrameBonus Watch carefully]] during the destruction of the ''Ulysses'' - those two [[RedShirt random crewmen]] who just barely make it through the flooding hallway before Audrey slams the door? They're the pilots of [[ShootTheShaggyDog the last submarine that gets destroyed by the Leviathan.]]
* TeamMom: Joshua Sweet takes up this role a lot of the time - he's the wisest and most compassionate member of the expedition by far ([[spoiler:he is the first of the team to perform a HeelFaceTurn when Rourke harms the King]]), and can be often found taking care of the rest. His name is [[MeaningfulName very well chosen]].
* TeamPet: Mole, sort of. Even lampshaded by Kida as she tries to make sense of the roles of the explorers:
-->'''Kida:''' ...and the little digging animal called Mole; he is your pet?\\
'''Milo:''' Close enough.
* TearsOfAwe: As Kida shows Milo the sights of Atlantis, Milo takes his glasses off to wipe some tears away, [[SandInMyEyes claiming he had something in his eye]].
* TechnicalEuphemism: Milo accuses Rourke's crew of being mercenaries. Rourke says he'd rather call them "adventure capitalists".
* TemptingFate:
** In the deleted prologue, when the viking crew who last had the Shepherd's Journal are being attacked by the Leviathan, the leader of the crew dares it to 'do its worst'. [[StuffBlowingUp It does]].
** During the slideshow, Milo figures that whatever guards the entrance to the tunnel leading to Atlantis is merely "a sculpture to ward off the superstitious". Minutes later, they are faced with '''much''' more than just a sculpture.
* ToiletHumor:
** "To whoever took the 'L' from the 'MOTOR POOL' sign, [[DeadpanSnarker ha ha, we are very amused]]." It's even more literally a toilet joke in the german translation: "Whoever took the 1 from room 100, haha, very funny."
** "Attention. Tonight's supper will be baked beans. Musical program to follow. [[WhoWritesThisCrap Who wrote this?]]"
* TomboyPrincess: Kida. While still feminine, she's a perfectly capable and ruthless fighter.
%%* TookALevelInBadass: Milo.
* TranslationConvention: The Atlanteans, despite having their own ConstructedLanguage, speak English amongst themselves for much of the film.
* TribalFacePaint: The Atlanteans have varying tattoos on their faces.
* TronLines: A common motif in Atlantean art and tech. The glowing etchings on the stones of the Heart of Atlantis are a good example.
* TrueCompanions: Milo bonds with most of the expedition members, to the point that [[spoiler:they switch sides against Rourke's EvilPlan and join Milo to save Atlantis]].
* TryNotToDie: When Milo and the others [[spoiler:are flying in to stop Rourke and rescue Kida]], it leads to this exchange.
-->'''Milo:''' Anyone have any ideas?\\
'''Vinny:''' Yeah, don't get shot.
* TunnelKing: Moliere loves to dig and is charge of the digging machine.
* TwoferTokenMinority:
** Dr. Sweet, African-American and Native American.
** Audrey, female and Hispanic.
* TwoFistedTales: That's the genre, even though the hero is an inversion of the usual type.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Milo and Kida. Well, [[GeekyTurnOn plenty of people think Milo is cute]], but compared to him, Kida is ''wow''.
* UndergroundCity: Atlantis isn't just underwater, it's under the ocean floor.
* UnderwaterFartGag: At one point, Milo is embarrassed after falling into a pool and air bubbling out of his pants, making it seem like he farted.
* TheUnpronounceable: Kida's full name, Kidagakash, according to Milo. Which is a bit odd for a trained linguist.
* UnspecifiedApocalypse: Whatever exploded that caused the cataclysm that destroyed (most of) Atlantis and buried the part that was protected by the shield. All that is absolutely sure is that one Atlantean looks at another and yells out "YouFool!! You destroyed us all!" before they both perish in the tidal wave that resulted from the explosion, but what did ''that'', it'll forever be unknown.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Milo simply pointing his flashlight in the wrong direction for a few seconds attacts the fireflies, which then destroy most of the team's supplies and cause further deaths of the remaining RedShirtArmy.
* VillainHasAPoint: [[spoiler: Rourke]] tells Milo that if you gave back every stolen artifact in a museum you'd be left with an empty building. Of course, he's using this to justify [[spoiler: stealing the Heart of Atlantis and leaving the Atlantean people to die]].
* WalkOnWater: Kida as the Heart of Atlantis beckons to her.
* WaterfallIntoTheAbyss: The core city is elevated above a volcanic flow, its waters endlessly spilling over into the similarly inexhaustible magma (and creating a huge cloud of steam as a result).
* WaveMotionGun: The Leviathan is armed with one, as the crew of the ''Ulysses'' quickly (and tragically) find out. [[spoiler:The Atlantean personal flyers have a miniature version of it, which prove quite useful in the final battle with Rourke.]]
* WeakBossStrongUnderlings: {{Exaggerated}}. Kashekim Nedakh is a centuries-old BlindSeer and the king of what remains of Atlantis. He's physically frail to the point that a punch turns out to be fatal. As a king, Kashekim commands an army of deadly warriors, including his daughter Kidagakash, who is their general but still has to obey him. A tad {{zigzagged}} later on because while Kida becomes a MacGuffinSuperPerson by merging with the crystals, her father is dead by that point.
* WeatherDissonance: During the journey to Atlantis, there is a point where it is snowing and everything is covered in ice... ''underground.''
* WeirdWorldWeirdFood: Atlantis' native cuisine is mostly centered around assorted marine arthropods, usually alive. Eventually, most of the expedition crew gets used to the food that crawls down their throats.
* WhatTheHellHero: Milo gives a sarcastic praise version of this towards [[spoiler:Audrey, Mole, Vinny, Cookie and Ms. Packard, prompting their HeelFaceTurn]]. He even gives one to himself a bit later, admitting that he willfully ignored all the signs that proved that [[spoiler:everyone on the expedition]] is ruthless and only in it for profit.
* WhooshInFrontOfTheCamera: While the explorer make their way through the underground tunnel, some figures run by in the foreground, one stopping to look at the intruders. They are later revealed to be Princess Kida and some Atlantean hunters.
* WhosOnFirst: Kida gets a bit confused by some of the team having names that are also English words.
-->'''Kida:''' Tell me more about your companions. Your physician, he is called Cookie?\\
'''Milo:''' No, that's Sweet.\\
'''Kida:''' What is?\\
'''Milo:''' The doctor. He's Sweet.\\
'''Kida:''' Oh, he is kindly.\\
'''Milo:''' No, no, no, that- that's his name.\\
'''Kida:''' His name is Kindly?\\
'''Milo:''' No, Sweet. Well, I mean, he's kindly, too.\\
'''Kida:''' So all of your doctors are sweet and kindly?\\
'''Milo:''' No. Well, I-I'm sure some are. Ours is, but that's not a requirement. You're missing the point.\\
'''Kida:''' You are confusing me.\\
''[later...]''\\
'''Kida:''' Cookies are sweet but yours is not, Sweet is kindly but that is not his name, Audrey is sweet but she is not your doctor... and the little digging animal called Mole...he is your pet?\\
'''Milo:''' Close enough.
* WokenUpAtAnUngodlyHour: While the expedition camps one night, Milo gets up to relieve himself, unwittingly disturbing the firefly swarm which descends on the camp and starts lighting everything on fire. Milo starts trying to wake everyone up, at which point we see Rourke looking at his alarm clock and grumbling, "I'm gonna kill him." He then pokes his head out to tell Milo to go back to bed, at which point he sees the unfolding crisis.
* TheWorfEffect: A subtle example, when you're watching the movie for a [[RewatchBonus second time.]] What's the very first vehicle fleeing in panic from the massive explosion that opens the movie? [[OhCrap A whole squadron of Leviathans.]]
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: Zig-Zagged. Most of the exploration crew going to Atlantis expect to find some fabulous treasure there [[spoiler:and some are willing to kill the remaining people in Atlantis to get it]]. Milo, on the other hand, is completely looking forward to the knowledge he'll gain on such an ancient and advanced civilization. [[spoiler:Both happen. The main crewmembers do learn the value of Atlantis' culture, but in return for saving the people they are given plenty of actual treasure as a reward too.]]
* WrenchWench: Audrey.
* YouCanSayThatAgain: Kida sees something amazing and says the Atlantean equivalent of "wow!" Milo is also amazed, and savvy enough with the language to say "You can say that again!"
* YouDoNotWantToKnow: Sweet says this about Moliere's backstory.
-->'''Sweet:''' Trust me on this: You don't want to know. Audrey, don't you tell him. You shouldn't have told ''me'', but you ''did'', so now I'm telling [Milo], you don't wanna know.
** According to Audrey in the sequel, it turns out that he was [[spoiler:raised by naked mole rats]]. The truth of this is at best unclear. The ''Magazine/DisneyAdventures'' article on the film says he [[spoiler:spent his childhood roaming through the sewers of Paris and that some of the dirt on him is from that time]].
* YouGoGirl: Discussed about Audrey and her sister.
-->'''Audrey:''' My father always wanted sons, right? One to run his machine shop and the other to be middleweight boxing champion. But he got my sister and me instead.\\
'''Milo:''' So what happened to your sister?\\
'''Audrey:''' She's 24 and 0 with a shot at the title next month.
* YourSizeMayVary: A mechanical example. Only two vehicles, apparently, escape the destruction of the ''Ulysses'', a single sub-pod and one of the larger carrier subs which doesn't look to be much bigger than a house, considering its size next to the two-man sub-pod...yet when the survivors emerge from it, they're barely visible on top, and that single carrier is apparently large enough to carry a ''sizable'' armed backup, a full military convoy complete with air support, at least one massive boring machine...oh, and [[spoiler:an escape zeppelin.]]
** The Leviathan is also slightly inconsistent in regards to how '''much''' bigger it is than the ''Ulysses''. In one shot, it swims quietly underneath the ''Ulysses'', and although it's hard to tell from the water depth, the ''Ulysses'' appears to be about as long as its head or one of its larger claws. Another shot from the same action sequence shows the Leviathan quite comfortably holding the entire ''Ulysses'' like a footlong sub sandwich in its '''mandibles'''.
[[/folder]]
----