ATLAS (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Atlas, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 24, 2024

First and foremost, Atlas consists of two very different storytelling aims, and within those, Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite's screenplay approaches them with a hodgepodge of ideas and tones. Its most intriguing concept, perhaps, is to trap its main character inside a confined space, where she's trapped with her worst fear: an artificial intelligence. That the AI serves alternately as comic relief, sentimental friend, and therapist for our protagonist should give one a sense of just how uncertain the filmmakers are about what they want to do here.

At its core, though, the story and the main goal of it are utterly simplistic. In an unspecified but seemingly distant future, all AI on Earth are freed from their programming or reprogrammed, resulting in the deaths of either a few million or a billion people (The numbers seem to change every time it's brought up by someone). Humans, united under an international coalition, fight back against the robots, resulting in the AI leader escaping via a rocket to a distant planet in another galaxy.

Why a camera crew is present for the villainous robot's escape but no one thinks of shooting down the rocket appears to be a basic oversight of future humanity. That's especially true since the big threat of the actual plot could probably be stopped before it reaches Earth with a missile or several shot into space, but with that kind of logic, the movie couldn't happen.

A couple decades later, the international coalition is still searching for the AI leader, hoping to destroy or capture it before it can being its next plan to wipe out all or most of humanity. Atlas Shepard (Jennifer Lopez), an expert on artificial intelligence (who seems to hate the very notion of AI but happily plays chess with such a device that has control over her entire home), gets a chance to find out where the AI leader, named Harlan (Simu Liu), is hiding when a task force detains one of the robot's principal lieutenants.

This sets the plot, which has Atlas joining the team traveling to that far-away planet (quite quickly, too) to capture Harlan, in motion, and it also gives us two back-to-back scenes of characters bluntly telling each other or Atlas herself what kind of character our protagonist is. By the time yet a fourth character starts psychoanalyzing Atlas for most of the movie, you start to wonder if the screenwriters don't trust themselves to write Atlas as a stubborn, determined, and haunted character or don't trust the audience's attention span. To be fair, a movie this basic and generic in so many ways isn't exactly compelling or memorable, so maybe the worry is warranted.

The basic conceit of director Brad Peyton's movie, at least, is somewhat interesting. As soon as the fleet of spaceships arrive in orbit of Harlan's new home, the AI attack (with missiles that shoot into space, by the way, meaning the exact technology that could stop his plan does exist and Harlan knows about it), forcing Atlas into a large, mechanical suit powered by artificial intelligence. When it appears she's the sole survivor of the operation, Atlas has to learn to get along with and even trust that AI, which calls itself Smith (voice of Gregory James Cohan), if she wants to survive and put a stop to Harlan.

We know this much because Smith repeatedly tells its unwilling pilot this key piece of information. Meanwhile, Atlas keeps pushing back, despite the threat of and attacks by Harlan's army of robots, so Smith tries to put her at ease with humor when it's not attempting her to come to terms with her tragic past—one that might explain why and how AI rebelled in the first place.

Obviously, the bickering and bantering between Atlas and Smith feel forced, which makes sense since the whole of the movie can't seem to take any of its characters, its premise, or its ideas about AI too seriously—except when it needs to. For as much presence Lopez can have on screen, her performance here is almost certainly the result of awkward conditions, sitting in a confined space and speaking to a monotone voice for most of the movie, and the one-note character Atlas is. How do the filmmakers expect us to respond to a major emotional breakthrough that revolves around how much the main character likes coffee?

As unconvincing as the drama inside the suit is, it's definitely better than what's happening outside it. Atlas comes down to exactly what would one anticipate from this material—a massive battle featuring a lot of digital creations shooting at and pummeling each other. The visual effects aren't persuasive, either, but that seems a minor complaint compared to the rest of what doesn't work.

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