Movie: Atlas
Production Companies: ASAP Entertainment, Safehouse Pictures, Nuyorican Productions, Berlanti-Schechter Films
Director: Brad Peyton
Producers: Brad Peyton, Jeff Fierson, Joby Harold, Tory Tunnell, Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter
Scriptwriters: Leo Sardarian, Aron Eli Coleite
Main Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Mark Strong
Release Date: May 24th 2024
Running Time: 120 minutes
Certificate: 12A
Introduction
At-las(t) a somewhat alright Netflix film… Although Atlas is alright in the same way many of Netflix’s other films are: perfectly alright in the moment but about as memorable as every student film ever made. Whilst Jennifer Lopez tries to extract something from the script, it doesn’t help when it feels like the screenwriters told ChatGPT to write a generic sci-fi script about A.I and then run from there. So, if you’re looking for a high quality film about the dangers of A.I, just watch Ex Machina by Alex Garland instead. However, if you’re looking for a 2 hour mediocre snooze fest you’ll forget about it a day here’s our review of Atlas.
Synopsis
Atlas follows Atlas Shepherd (Lopez) a scientist, whose parents help perfect A.I, until an A.I they make goes rogue and leads a series of terror attacks against the Earth: Harlan (Liu). After Harlan is forced to retreat, things settle down until he is tracked down to the Andromeda Galaxy, with Atlas accompanying the resultant mission to bring Harlan to justice. Unfortunately, the ship is attacked and Atlas is forced to jump into a mech suit with an onboard A.I in order to survive and track down the rogue A.I before it’s too late.
Analysis
The Script in Atlas
Unfortunately for Atlas, despite having a pretty decent idea for its script (once again harnessing fears about A.I) it utterly wastes this premise like Chelsea wasting any manager’s time. As mentioned in the introduction, it just feels exceptionally lazy giving the somewhat interesting idea that the film tries to tackle with the idea of rogue A.I and the danger that it can pose to humanity. However, it lacks the necessary subtlety to make this premise work as it just reduces the debate to A.I good until it goes bad which if you’ve seen more than one sci-fi film in your life, like I Robot or Ex Machina, gets tired quickly.
Also, it doesn’t help when the film’s big reveal about Atlas’s relationship to Harlan is so predictable that even Stevie Wonder could have called it, leading to quite a flat feel for the film due to the lazy reveal. Overall, if this script was written by A.I we’ve got a long time before it starts worrying people’s job security.
Jennifer Lopez’s Performance in Atlas
Honestly, looking for positives in a film as perfectly average as Atlas is difficult but maybe we can give Jennifer Lopez some flowers for trying to pull gold out of s**t. But then again her last few films have all been so similar in terms of performance and style it can be difficult to differentiate them. Anyway, despite having to put up with some hefty nonsense Lopez does at least look like she’s trying to get something out of the film.
But then again when Netflix are repeatedly willing to throw stupid amounts of money at actors to star in mediocre snooze fests can you really blame actors for phoning in performances? Either way, we never thought we’d be saying this but Lopez is the best of a bad bunch in Atlas. Although that’s mostly because they utterly waste Sterling K. Brown and Mark Strong. Now that’s an offence to cinema…
Summary
To summarise Atlas, this is another mediocre Netflix film which despite topping the most watched chart (yes really) which audiences will instantly forget they’ve watched the next day. Once again, this film proves that a decent cast and premise are no match for terrible script writing but hey if you get all of those things you too can top the most irrelevant metric in media: the Netflix most watched list.
Overall Rating: 5/10 – Average
Target Audience: 12+
Content Warning: Moderate Violence and Gore, Moderate Profanity, Mild Frightening and Intense Scenes
Recommendation: No
 which audiences will instantly forget they’ve watched the next day.){kind=link}