‘Atlas’ Review
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Mark Strong | Written by Leo Sardarian, Aron Eli Coleite | Directed by Brad Peyton
In a dystopian future, analyst Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) loathes Artificial Intelligence with everything she has thanks to fugitive and “AI terrorist” Harlan (Simu Liu). When it is discovered that Harlan has fled to another planet in a nearby galaxy, she agrees to go on a mission to track him down. Soon after she touches down in the Andromeda galaxy, things get hairy — leading Atlas on a journey to work with the AI around her rather than against it.
If you’ve ever wanted to see Jenny from the block — or indeed, Jenny from the rock, given that she’s on a different planet in this instance — get repeatedly beaten up by a bunch of AI soldiers, you’ve come to the right place with Netflix’s Atlas. Simultaneously painful in its uniqueness and boring in its homogeny, the movie sets out to add something new to the already saturated genre of dystopia. Weirdly, it both fails and succeeds in achieving its goal, but it will almost definitely be forgotten even a week after its release.
Firstly, it’s necessary to give credit where credit is due: JLo is acting Atlas with all the intensity and delusion of making it into the top five for Best Actress. Everything a scene demands of her and she will give it 100 times more, making Atlas potentially the most camp sci-fi produced since Barbarella. It’s a pattern that has stood JLo in good stead in 2024, perfectly set up by Greatest Love Story Never Told earlier in the year. Both largely swinging to big misses, the performance continuity can only be saluted throughout each.
On the other hand, Simu Liu is probably wishing that his appearance had been replaced with AI altogether, riding on the high of last year’s juggernaut Barbie. As the antagonist of Atlas, he’s largely amiss from proceedings, with his presence weighing over the movie’s duration like a heavy burden. This means that Harlan isn’t the most interesting villain, but rather his agents are instead, delving into Atlas’ psyche as much as possible. She spends the majority of the movie facing off against them rather than him, meaning the ultimate payoff is less than satisfying.
While the plot is as basic as a Fiat 500 (there’s honestly not much to say here), Atlas does scrape some credibility back with its visual craft. There’s clearly been a pretty penny spent on it, and that’s mostly been put to good use. Atlas’ AI body, known as Smith, could easily assimilate into one of the top dog franchises, with the action sequences themselves holding their own.
Weighing towards the negative, viewers are likely to walk away from Atlas feeling rather ambivalent. There’s a good reason why its marketing has been so cloak and dagger, now being shoved in the faces of any Netflix subscriber in reach now that it’s available to stream. At best guess, most of those targeted will check out long before Atlas herself does.
** 2/5
Atlas is available to stream on Netflix now.
