Given the rise of A.I, as well as the conditions surrounding the strike last year, it’s no surprise that movies are going to be tackling this topic. We saw this as early as in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Instead of exploring this topic with nuance and complexity, Atlas is merely an amalgamation of sci-fi films that have come before, and fails to offer anything original or thought-provoking.
Jennifer Lopez plays Atlas Shepherd, an analyst whose been in pursuit of A.I Harlan (Simu Liu) for most of her life. Harlan was created by her mother, and somehow, he managed to rewrite his code and then murdered his creator. He proceeded to terrorize the human race before going into hiding. Now, years later, his henchman Casca (Abraham Popoola) has been captured, and interrogating him is the best chance they have of locating Harlan.
The movie doesn’t spend enough time on the worldbuilding. We’re in Atlas’ apartment for a brief minute before we’re embarking on a space adventure, so we don’t get to see the level of interaction society has with A.I. Even a movie like I, Robot, which isn’t the best sci-fi movie to ever exist, makes the effort to establish the futuristic world we’re in.
Let me just say that J.Lo acts her face off – she commits to the physicality required of the role – but she feels miscast. It’s the first role I’ve seen from J.Lo where she looks less than glamourous, but it doesn’t help Atlas feel authentic as a character. The character is defined by her trauma and guilt, so most of the film is just one long therapy session for Atlas as she tries to establish a connection with Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan) – an ARQ she needs to depend on for survival.
Smith is incredibly sassy for some reason, and this really throws off the tone of the film at times. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel when Atlas and Smith start sniping at each other, but I also know that this isn’t entertaining. The movie doesn’t bother developing any of the other characters. We have fantastic actors like Mark Strong and Sterling K. Brown who are barely in the film, so they don’t really have the opportunity to make any real impact.
The movie soon takes a dichotomous route with regard to A.I – Harlan is bad A.I, Smith is good A.I, and that’s basically all there is to the story. Why does Harlan go rogue? No one knows. However, it’s easy to believe that Harlan is A.I because Liu basically has one expression on his face throughout the movie – a cold maliciousness. He brings absolutely nothing to his performance, but can’t really be blamed because the screenplay doesn’t bother to develop him further than simply being bad A.I.
I’m not sure if it’s ironic or apt that this movie feels like it’s written by ChatGPT. It’s generic and uninteresting all the way through, which I could maybe forgive if it was at least competent but it’s not even that. Atlas is also a movie that tries to show how the character has let go off her emotional baggage through the change in her hair. The movie begins with her hair curly, and ends with her hair straight. I’ll leave you to figure out what that means.
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