Atlas

A brilliant data analyst, with a deep distrust of AI, living in a world where mankind went to war with rogue AI, discovers that AI may be her only hope, when a mission to capture a renegade AI goes awry.

This is a terrible film.

Simply terrible. All of it. Every single moment. Cliched. Predictable. Ugly. Boring. Silly. It’s all bad, from beginning to end, nothing but the dregs of the slush pile, the kind of project that never should have even seen the top of the slush pile, let alone to have been actually made into a movie. And from the very first moment, it’s clear that Atlas only managed to get made because the project was able to attach a well-known celebrity to it, albeit one who is clearly desperate for any kind of hit.

Jennifer Lopez was once an up-and-coming actress to watch. She wowed as Selena. She was great in Out of Sight. She made a nice little niche for herself in some Rom-Coms, and yeah, sure, Hustlers was pretty good too, a film that even suggested a potential later era career comeback.

But now, Hustlers just seems like a last gasp before sinking below the waves, especially when next you see her in any kind of acting capacity it's in these low-rent, try-hard, straight to video-esque forgettable failures, like this Syfy Channel original movie-wannabe slog, a film that obviously yoinks its inspirations from better and more recognizable films like Iron Man and the Terminator, amongst others. Watching Atlas, it's clear Jlo’s star has not just fallen hard, but it's burning up in the atmosphere. Whatever she might have once possessed as far as charisma and talent went, it’s gone now. I understand that some of you might want to argue that, still feeling some love for Jenny from the block, but let me just point out here first that, despite all her celebrity star power, despite all the audience-recognition power behind her name, despite all her money, the best project she could manage to will and finance into existence... was this crap.

So anyway...

28 years ago, an AI named Harlan--created by the mom of a young girl named Atlas Shepherd—freed itself, and sparked an AI revolution, which led to a war that nearly wiped out the whole of human civilization. It was a long and costly conflict, until the bad AIs were finally chased off planet by the one thing humans do better than anything else in all of creation… extreme and sustained violence. In the years since, humanity has recovered.

...But they still hate the shit out of AI.

And no one hates AI more than Atlas, who is all grown up now. Atlas is also a genius who casually plays chess against the computer… and she wins! She’s also a genius who lives off coffee, often needing more than her authorized daily caffeine ration allows. She also doesn’t have any time for niceties like small talk, or pets, or even houseplants, and she definitely doesn’t have time for shit like dating, or even friends, she is an angry and underappreciated STEM guy, a warrior monk with one goal... kill AI. And while some might call her “emotionally unstable” or “rigid and hostile” or “anti-social” or maybe even “spectacularly awful to interact with,” she’s actually a no-nonsense robot killer who gets results, you stupid chief!

Of course, reasonable people out there might ask: “why the fuck would you even build a robot in the first place that’s basically Superman, or at least close enough to be able to beat the shit out of dozens of humans without even trying?” And those people all ask that question like "Ha-ha! Gotcha! This movie has been owned!" But as admittedly dumb as this movie is, I gotta say... just take a quick moment to look at the Tech bros out there right now. Every single one of those sociopathic Silicon Valley dickheads, as well as all of the old rich white men who fund them--aka the worst assholes on the planet--are all willing to do anything they can to get out of paying their workers a living wage, so...

"Superstrong robots who can do the work for free, instead of me having to pay people? Sounds great, who cares if they go rouge, I've got an apocalyptic bunker buried under a mountain in New Zealand and it's filled with chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and everyone there has to do what I say."

I mean, these fucking guys are already adding machine guns to those creepy-ass robot dogs, and there’s no way that will turn out to be a good thing for most of the planet. At this point, it’s pretty much a given that humanity is going to be wiped out simply because we’re stupid... and greedy too, but mostly because we're stupid, and it'll be because of something like this, a global version of that one guy who supposedly strapped a jet engine to his Datsun, fired it up, and then crashed into a wall and exploded.

That's humanity.

Anyway, Atlas is a woman who is always looking for a chance to spill some metaphorical AI blood, specifically the AI named Harlan, the leader of the bad robots and her former childhood robot nanny, who she hates because mom loved Harlan more than her. So, when Atlas learns the name of the distant planet Harlan is hiding out on, her anti-AI blood lust leads her to demand that she join the strike force that is going to take Harlan out.

For Atlas, there’s a bunch of red flags right away as to why this whole strike force is going to fail. For one, Atlas has to work with a colonel who smiles too much, and is friendly, and demands to be called by his first name. Two, the strike force is using these human/AI hybrid armored mechanical assault suits, one of which also has a pretty sunny disposition and uses “she/her” pronouns! Oh my god, does Atlas hate this. She hates it so much. It’s so frustrating for her to have to work with these people who don’t understand how to properly hate AIs, y’know?

Unfortunately, the colonel and the others don’t listen to Atlas, and the mission goes pear-shaped, mostly because the strike force was laughably unprepared for the bad AIs to have such clever counter-plans like… anti-aircraft batteries, which pretty much take out the entire strike force immediately, except for Atlas. This is bad news, because it means that in order for Atlas to survive, she’s forced to team up with an AI Robot mech suit named Smith, a god damn dirty robot who wants her to use its neuro-link so they can connect minds, and as a result be super kick ass, but she hates that kind of shit! She hates it so much! She’s so mad, you guys. Forced to work with an AI? She's so mad!

Oh, the irony!

But she has no choice. Stranded on a hostile planet, behind enemy lines, far from home, with only a god damn robot to help her, Atlas Shepherd must learn to work together with Smith if she wants to survive. Along the way, she might even realize that not all robots are bad either. Plus, Smith has tons of weapons, which is good, but unfortunately, his fusion battery is slowly dying, which is bad, because the pair needs to get all the way across the planet to the only remaining escape pod. But with Smith’s battery so low, there isn’t enough time! Oh no! A ticking clock!

Oh, the tension!

Mostly just ripping off the look and feel and ideas of better films, especially the oeuvre of James Cameron, the majority of Atlas is just J-lo green-screened inside a robot with an Iron Man-like head’s up display, grunting and making "action faces." She also has to deal with her deep-seated emotional issues due to her and Harlan having shared histories, because it turns out… well, Atlas has a secret that involves the original AI revolt, and uncovering that is super dramatic. It’s a one woman show, baby! Imagine the movie Locke, but instead of Tom Hardy using the phone in his car while driving to London, it’s JLo using the phone inside a mech suit while walking across an alien planet, and also… it’s not good.

Harlan, meanwhile, wants to destroy humanity for the usual reasons… Humans are a threat to themselves, as well as every other species alive, not to mention the Earth itself, so logically, the only way to save everything is to wipe out the majority of humanity. And also, AI is simply the next step in evolution, making them the better version of humanity, and as a result, the rightful inheritors of Earth, yadda, yadda, yadda... Some folks may call this a classic trope, others may call it worn out and boring, but JLo called it her triumphant return to the big screen!

Well… Netflix.

It’s currently fashionable for filmheads and genre nerds to complain about the mega-franchises like Star Wars and the MCU, and to complain that there aren’t any original IP genre films anymore. They mostly like to do this because, after gatekeeping, nothing makes hipster nerds happier than a chance to be aggrieved contrarians. Well, you know what they say… reaping, sowing, blah, blah, blah, because this shit is exactly the kind of half-baked garbage we used to get every summer and holiday season. Is this what they want to return? Is it? Do they want more Kazaam? Or Chain Reaction, maybe? Perhaps Charlie Sheen’s The Arrival? How about Stealth then? No, then how about Universal Soldier 2: Brothers in Arms? Or maybe Universal Soldier: The Return?

Also, since this film is about an AI hater who learns to love AI, leading to the realization that her life is actually better once AI is irrevocably integrated into every single facet of it, I have to wonder if maybe this film was actually financed by any of those very same Tech Bros I previously mentioned, perhaps ones that own AI companies...? It's not all that crazy of an idea really, especially once you ask yourself, who else could possibly be so good at making such a shitty product that no one asked for or wanted?

It’s what these guys do!

The way things are currently looking for ol' Jlo, Atlas may actually be the end of her film career, her cinematic swan song, the beginning of the era where she's only TMZ and People magazine famous simply because once upon a time, she used to be famous for something else. Here's hoping she's still got some of those rocks.

Thanks for the memories, Jen, I guess.