Are you ready for another “AI attacks humanity and finds out” movie? Well, you better be because Harlan is coming for you no matter what. Harlan is the name of the AI robot that will cause a lot of death and destruction in the future just so you know. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so let’s start from the beginning. Atlas is the latest Netflix action science fiction movie starring Jennifer Lopez about a rogue AI robot who wants to destroy humanity. Featuring great visuals, loads of action, and a solid albeit stereotypical script, Atlas is definitely a movie worth watching. It doesn’t take itself too seriously adding a lot of humor to the mix.
Most of all, it knows perfectly well what it actually is, balancing action, personal drama, and humor to create just an all-around fun distraction. We will be following Atlas Shepherd, an analyst with a chip on her shoulder as she leads the Earth’s efforts to locate and kill a group of rogue AI robots. To do this, they will have to travel to a distant and exotic alien planet. And you know me, give me a faraway and exotic alien planet and I’m good. Space escapism is my middle name. Since these AI robots are quite formidable, our team will be using giant mech robots with their AI systems.
Think Pacific Rim or Transformers although the action is most similar to the 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow. The director of the movie, Brad Peyton, says that the inspiration for Atlas came from the video game Titanfall. I haven’t that one as I was too busy with Battlefield but I did play MechWarrior 2 and 3. And those were a lot of fun back in the day. Damn, I’m fucking old as shit. Brad is a solid director and his movies Rampage and San Andreas, both starring The Rock, were good mindless entertainment. Here, he tried to inject a bit of emotion and backstory but not too forcefully and with a lot of humor.
Jennifer Lopez, who I still don’t believe is 54 years old, did a good job in the lead role. A surprisingly good job considering the genre and the limitations of her role. I mean, she’ll spend most of the time in that giant robot groaning, crying, and screaming. I think they should’ve cut at least half of those scenes as they were completely unnecessary after the first one. We get it, it’s hard for her and she doesn’t like AI just like Will Smith in I, Robot. They tried to balance this out for her with the final scene where she’s wearing one of those sexy stretchy tights. And let me tell you she looks fine as shit, sexy mamacita.
Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and especially Abraham Popoola as Casca were good as well. Again with stereotypical characters, you can’t do too much. Atlas is a movie fully harnessing the recent AI developments to connect with the viewers. Hell, one of the main actors in the movie is the Artificial Intelligence inside the giant mech robot. The interactions between it and Atlas were well-written and reminiscent of Avatar. However, Jenny from the block did overact in a lot of the scenes. I know that a lot of people will be put off by this but it didn’t bother me that much.
I fully knew what I was getting myself into. Atlas feels like an eighties movie. It’s like you’re watching an updated version of Robot Jox. It’s a perfect time-killer and something to run in the background while you’re doing something else. Don’t worry, you’re not going to miss anything even if you go to the kitchen to make a sandwich or two. Finally, if you’re looking for more movies like Atlas I suggest you check The Creator and Jung-E. And since the planet GR-33 looks a lot like Furya, you might want to take a look at The Chronicles of Riddick.
Director: Brad Peyton
Writers: Leo Sardarian, Aron Eli Coleite
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Abraham Popoola, Mark Strong, Gregory James Cohan
Fun Facts: The budget for the movie was $100 million. Most of Atlas was shot in California, USA with some scenes shot additionally in New Zealand.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14856980/
