Movie Review ~ Atlas

I probably could have had some form of artificial intelligence watch the new Netflix film Atlas for me, write this review, and publish it with just a few clicks of my mouse. We’ve come that far in the science of the impossible, bringing what was only imagined in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Terminator (1984), and I, Robot (2004) to tantalizing life. The ever-looming specter of AI has consistently served as both a harbinger of humanity’s innovation and a chilling symbol of its potential undoing. As years pass and real technology inches closer to the fictional depictions in media, the potential of an AI uprising seems less like an abstract nightmare and more like a plausible scenario.

Enter Atlas, directed by Brad Peyton (San Andreas), cleverly tapping into this zeitgeist with a story that’s both a cautionary tale and an action-packed thrill ride. While it’s not on the same level as the visionary work done by Stanley Kubrick in 2001 or even what Andrew Niccol imagined in 1997’s Gattaca, it thrusts viewers headlong into a future where the world’s hubris collides with an insatiable thirst for technological dominance. When we come up against an enemy of our creation who knows our next move, how do we plan a sneak attack?

The press notes for Atlas describe Jennifer Lopez’s character as “a brilliant yet misanthropic data analyst’ and I’m not sure if I could have explained it better. The cynicism in Atlas Shepherd comes from a mistrust of the robots who had at one time been assigned as personal help within many families. Designed by her mother (Lana Parrilla, The Tax Collector), one robot stood out from the others, Harlan (Simu Liu, One True Loves), and it was his betrayal and eventual emergence as the lead terrorist in a terrifying uprising of similar non-sentients, that put Atlas on high alert for the rest of her life.

After Harlan flees Earth into orbit, the world waits on edge for 28 years, and Atlas bears the burden of her mother’s death, throwing herself into work that furthers her mom’s research while distrusting the science she is exploring. When Casca (Abraham Popoola, Cruella), one of Harlan’s deadliest assassins, reappears on Earth and is captured, Atlas and General Jake Boothe (Mark Strong, 1917) learn where the Universe’s Most Wanted has been hiding. Despite protests from Boothe and Colonel Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction) that she’s not trained for field work, Atlas pressures her way onto the mission to find Harlan, only to learn that combat will be using titan-sized robots linked to the operator through the very AI she has worked to dismantle systematically. As the mission unfolds and plans unravel, Atlas is marooned within an advanced robot and forced to trust what she fears.

Netflix has increasingly become a significant player in securing top-tier talent for its streaming blockbusters, and Atlas is no exception. While one could argue the output has its winners and losers, the ability to snag true blue movie stars like Lopez (The Mother), Ryan Reynolds (The Adam Project), Geroge Clooney (The Midnight Sky), Gal Gadot (Heart of Stone), Charlize Theron (The School for Good and Evil), and Kevin Hart (Lift) have made them formidable in their peer group. I’m not going to lie to you and say Atlas is on par with the big-budget tentpole pictures that blow the roof off theaters and the box office, but there’s a certain charm (helped greatly by Lopez) that makes its corniness extremely palatable.

On the topic of Lopez, I often wonder how she manages to be everywhere at once and produce so much content, and a film like Atlas gives me a hint. For much of the movie, she’s interacting solo in one location (the inside of a robot voiced by Gregory James Cohan), and all of that could be filmed in a studio set-up in her guest house, if necessary. Director Peyton (Rampage) might have filmed these scenes in a week or less and taken another two (tops) to get the rest of her coverage. 

Not that Lopez is skimping on a performance. Never giving less than 120%, as a consummate professional, she’s fully committed to making Atlas as a character feel real to the viewer, and that ever-present earnestness is why she’s remained at the top of her game for decades. She’s got a knack for selecting projects that are as diverse as they are ambitious, and while Atlas may not be groundbreaking, its blend of high-stakes drama and glossy visual effects ensures an entertaining watch for fans.

The supporting cast also rises to meet her, even as the narrative always borders on this side of predictable. Liu, who made such a splash with his debut in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and then has sort of floundered, brings an eerie perfection to renegade robot Harlan. With chilly ambition that mirrors the calculating nature of the AI he wants to control, Liu is a solid heavy to go up against Lopez and her robot. While not given as much time to do any deep dives past their army grunt roles, Brown and Strong are good enough actors to add a special touch whenever they are on screen.

No stranger to large-scale effects-driven films, Peyton’s experience is evident in the mostly seamless integration of CGI and practical effects, creating a visually arresting future world. Barry Chusid’s production design is also a standout, almost gleefully nodding to the futuristic possibilities of technology rather than anchoring them in present-day aesthetics as if we aren’t currently advancing rapidly. The result is a world that feels both fantastical and scarily plausible.

Yes, the visual effects can frequently get so shiny and smooth that it looks like you’ve been placed into a first-person shooter video game, and they aren’t all rendered to perfection. It’s as if the effects were all designed first, and then Lopez and company were plugged in after the fact, not the other way around. When the blend is balanced, though, it looks convincing, and the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids nerd in me loved the focus on gadgets and upgrades within the robot and in the world of the future created to make the user’s life easier.

Occasionally succumbing to sci-fi clichés, Atlas may be grand, overworked, and overlong, but nonetheless manages to remain a captive viewing experience. I feel that the most likely naysayers are those who have a problem with Lopez as a public figure and not anything the movie is offering up, which is (microwave) popcorn entertainment that knows what level it is operating on. Sync up, stretch out, and enjoy two hours of well-produced entertainment you don’t have to leave your house to enjoy.