Atlas Review – One Where JLO Gets An AI Bestie
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“If you make a smart robot, the first rule should be: Do not harm people”
If Jennifer Lopez played a hopeless, wide-eyed romantic who’s always rushing into a new relationship in her last film, “This Is Me… Now,” she takes a complete U-turn in the 2024 sci-fi flick “Atlas,” where she plays protagonist Atlas Sheperd, a brilliant but “anti-social” analyst with extreme trust issues and a passionate dislike for both human and AI interactions.
Directed by Brad Peyton and written by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, “Atlas” revolves around sci-fi’s favorite trope – robots gone rogue. Simu Liu plays Harlan, the world’s first “AI terrorist,” who reprograms himself to carry out a genocide; he is like a robot version of Thanos but with a criminally short screen time. After getting several robots to go rogue with him, Harlan escapes Earth, promising to return and finish his plan to wipe out humans. When an elaborate space mission is launched by the military hunt down Harlan, top analyst Atlas Sheperd (Jennifer Lopez) who helps trace his location, insists she join the mission. However, to defeat Harlan, Atlas will have to team-up with something she distrusts most – AI.
Jennifer Lopez isn’t completely convincing as the coffee guzzling misanthrope, smart enough to constantly defeat artificial intelligence in a string of chess games, but she does give the character her best shot. For someone branded as “anti-social” by colleagues, Atlas is excessively emotional, and talks about Harlan like one would talk about a back-stabbing ex-boyfriend one just cannot get over with. A significant portion of the runtime is devoted to Atlas talking, arguing, fighting, and bonding with an AI called Smith. She teams up with Smith to survive on the alien planet where Harlan is hiding, and their banter is honestly quite amusing in parts.
“Atlas” features several battle sequences with humans in giant robotic armored suits that look like a mash-up of “Transformers” and a first-person shooter mecha game. While the special effects aren’t exactly cutting-edge, they have an entertaining 3D action-game feel, like watching someone’s gaming live stream from a few years ago. The fight scenes are chaotic, to say the least, but they still offer some thrills. However, the cinematography of the alien planet includes several bizarre elements that don’t make sense, like flies hovering over dead bodies.
Considering “Atlas” is a sci-fi action movie, it was slightly disappointing not to see Jennifer Lopez kicking some butt, especially since she has proven her action-star potential in the Netflix movie “The Mother.” The writers should’ve tweaked Atlas’ character a bit to give JLo a chance to show off some combat skills. Although, for all you know, it might have been her choice to play an intellectual recluse instead of her usual softer romantic roles.
Overall, “Atlas” is formulaic, even though it does include some fun existential interactions about the future of human-AI relationships. It’s one of those “guilty pleasure” flicks, which is quite watchable if you’re a fan of the actors and enjoy the occasional no-brainer movie.
You can stream “Atlas” on Netflix.
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