We’ve got a really interesting one for you today, folks! This is a project I’ve been following closely for a few years, now, and since it finally released recently I’m very excited to finally get to talk to you about it!
Austin McConnell is a YouTube creator with a fairly diverse range of content, but I discovered him in January of 2022 when his video entitled ‘i got bored and made my own cinematic universe’ dropped. I’d never seen his work before but I was immediately intrigued because of the range of characters depicted in the video’s thumbnail. I could tell immediately that these were old characters and probably in the public domain and that was pretty exciting for me as I have a fascination with public domain properties. To clarify, public domain in regards to most creative works means stuff produced in 1930 or earlier as of the time of writing, or in many cases works for which copyright protections were never filed. Notable characters in the public domain currently are Mickey Mouse from his earliest animated appearances, Nancy Drew the teenage girl detective, Sherlock Holmes the not teenage girl detective and Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz. (A teenage girl, but not a detective.) So, in theory, you could write a book and publish it featuring Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes working together to solve a crime if you use only elements introduced in the first four Nancy Drew books (All from 1930) and the original 60 Sherlock Holmes books written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You could do this and no-one could sue you for copyright infringement.
This, in regards to comic book characters, covers a massive amount of ground for the golden age of comics where a lot of stuff was tried out for an issue or two and then dropped without adequate copyright protection having been filed when the renewal date was up.
I also love superheroes, of course. While my interest in the MCU has all but dried up over the past seven years (Brand New Day and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday notwithstanding.) the new DCU is extremely exciting (I’m already nostalgic for last year’s Summer of Superman.) and I’m always interested to see what indie creators are doing. Even back in 2022, the idea of someone taking a bunch of old, forgotten, bargain-basement superheroes and amalgamating them into a singular, unified universe grabbed my attention in a big way and I couldn’t wait to see if this concept went anywhere.
There was a substantial wait. Unfortunately, health issues including heart trouble and a stroke hit Mr. McConnell in 2024. He’s been extremely open on his channel about this particular set of struggles, including the partial paralysis of his right side, which set his progress for this project back considerably as he was learning how to 3D animate and creating the first feature film project for this shared universe on his own. Having had experience with relatives suffering from strokes, even doing regular stuff can be a lot of trouble afterward and so doing something as complicated as learning 3D modeling and animation and then creating an entire film? That level of dedication is a superhero origin story all its own, honestly.
And despite any and all of that, here we are. Atlas: The Animated Movie is here and you can watch it for free on YouTube.
Borrowing Connor’s format, we’re going to rate this film by Story, Acting and Overall (That’s where I’ll be discussing animation specifically.) with some final thoughts at the end.
Story 8/10
Jim Randall is an I.T. Guy working for Comet Corporation, a company in decline. The past year hasn’t been kind and so corporate is sending in an assessor to see where improvements can be made, eventually including possible staffing cuts down the line once the assessment is complete. The assessor is Linda Thompson, and you can tell Jim is kind of smitten the moment she walks into the boardroom.
Jim is, unfortunately, on the milquetoast side of being an everyman. Small, softly spoken and with a poor work ethic, he’s not a bad guy… he’s just sort of forgettable. He’s brilliant, able to solve complex I.T. Issues quickly and efficiently, but uses this ability to spend time goofing around on the clock and leaving important tasks till the last minute. Not a great look for a company being assessed in terms of where to cut the fat. Still! That doesn’t stop him from taking the opportunity to offer Linda a ride when her prearranged transport bails on her, last minute.
Once they arrive at her place it turns out her younger brother, Andy, is mixed up with the wrong crowd. Linda and Jim get out of the car but Linda is the only one to step up and try and get her brother out of the dangerous situation he’s found himself in. When one of the bad guys tries hitting on Linda in an extremely aggressive manner, Jim does step up… but very ineffectively and once he takes a punch to the nose, he’s out for the count.
Eventually they make it to the sibling’s apartment. Linda, very upset and in need of time to deal with her brother, sends Jim on his way. She points out that one thing she can’t stand is people who cave in to bullies. There’s nothing Jim can do but go home to his pigsty of an apartment and lick his wounds.
Once asleep, Jim is visited by the titan, Atlas, in his dreams. Atlas has taken note of how weak and worthless Jim is but offers him a lifeline. He sees no-one on Earth who is worthy of praise. None who can live up to the ideals of true strength. Jim, though, could maybe be that person if he’s willing to commit.
And he does, of course! (It would be a very short, anticlimactic movie otherwise.) He has an uncle Hank in Colorado who owns a ranch and so Jim travels there with a simple request; Please teach me how to be a man. A hefty work schedule, an upgrade in diet and nightly workout sessions begin the process, but will that be enough to create a man the very titan holding up the world can be proud of?
You’ll need to watch to find out!
Acting 9/10
Austin McConnel voices Jim himself in the early scenes of the movie and then we switch to Sam Metcalf after Jim’s time on the ranch. I was surprised by the vocal shift, but it wasn’t a bad call at all!
Everyone does a stellar job of voicing their respective characters. There’s less than 20 named characters throughout the movie, with additional background voices for crowd scenes and meetings and the like.
Cat Protano voices Linda Thompson (She’s also done voice work for several Muhoyo games and the Pokemon anime!) and she has some great lines. (One particular one “I’ve GOT time!?” made me laugh pretty hard. You’ll know it when you hear it.)
Tim Simmons voices Huffnagel, Jim’s boss at Comet Corporation and he does a really great job. You can tell he’s having a lot of fun with the role towards the end.
Michael Drew voices Atlas and he manages to impose a sense of gravitas and mystery to the role. When he says “Speak my name with reverence, Earthling, as your world was borne upon my back.” you believe it.
Overall 8.5/10
I loved this movie a lot more than I thought I was going to, even though I’d been waiting for it pretty eagerly.
I think the part that resonated most with me was a scene where Jim and Linda are talking and she points out that if all the new strength and bravado was somehow meant to impress her, it wasn’t at all necessary. Jim responds that it wasn’t for her, it was all for himself. While the incident where she saw him humiliated was a catalyst for his self improvement, that was only the straw that broke the camels back. He wanted to improve himself to be a better person overall, not to impress her. I think that made a really good point about how positive masculinity is supposed to work. Jim used to live like a slob, take poor care of himself, do less work than he should have while on the clock and yes… he was a coward. Taking control of his life and implementing structured improvements not only made him powerful enough to be a superhero, but it also gave him the strength to do better at the little, every day things that can improve anyone’s life. Keeping your space neat, working to the best of your ability instead of slacking off, being reliable for those around you, taking action to improve things instead of just daydreaming. It’s all pretty inspirational stuff.
The goal for this movie in terms of animation was to rival the dizzying heights of those early 2000s straight to DVD Barbie flicks. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the stated intention. I think, honestly, the animation is a lot better than those. There’s nothing in here that’s going to rival Dreamworks or Disney (Well. Not current stuff anyway. I think some scenes in Atlas give the original Toy Story a run for it’s money.) but there’s nothing in here that looks absolutely terrible, either. Some of the facial expressions get a little wacky and there are a few little glitches here and there, but not a lot really took me out of the film… except the panning shots over locations. There are a lot of them. Some of them are used to set a scene and just overstay their welcome, some are used as backgrounds for dialogue so we have something to watch while characters are talking off screen. The shots of the ranch, while pretty, last far too long and we get just massive amounts of time (Relatively speaking) dedicated to scrolling up skyscrapers or along streets or skylines. That would be my only real complaint as far as the visual side of things go, taking into account the stated goal of rivaling Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001).
It’s played completely straight; there’s no self-aware wink at the camera moments, there’s no meta-humor about the genre or the film’s origins or anything like that. The closest we get is some commentary on Atlas’s uniform and those moments are endearing in their own way. This is a straight up, earnest, honest and open film that likes what it is and what it has to say. I actually really appreciate that. It would have been extremely easy to go the other way with it and thank goodness that low hanging fruit was left on the tree.
Jim’s Final thoughts
The Superzeroes cinematic universe is a thing of strange beauty. Atlas isn’t the only character you can currently see from it – there’s also The Sensational Cat-Man which is a 17 minute long pilot for an animated show in the style of an old Hanna-Barbera hero cartoon like Birdman and the Galaxy Trio or the Superfriends. There are also, and I’m particularly excited about this, books! I just picked up my copy of Six Gun Gorilla and you can expect to see me Spotlight that later in the year. So, if any of this sounds like fun to you, there’s plenty of content for you to enjoy.
One last thing I’ll mention, though it might go without saying as we are talking about a superhero based cinematic universe, there IS an after-credits scene for Atlas. Stick around through all the credits to see it.
Check Atlas: The Animated Movie out here!
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