It’s been a rather dreadful year for big Netflix original sci-fi films in 2024 (see “Rebel Moon,” for one), and “Atlas,” the big event science-fiction dystopian thriller from director Brad Peyton (2015’s “San Andreas” and “Rampage”), won’t change that narrative in the slightest. Set in a conventionally bleak dystopian future—aren’t they all?— “Atlas” is rote and routine, using the concept of sci-fi and artificial intelligence in the most obvious way: A.I. runs wild, attacks humans, and becomes the central enemy of the entire world; the ultimate threat that humanity must face, battle, and hopefully defeat. But all of it is conventionally realized, uninspired, dull, and something you’ve seen done more inventively a thousand times before.
“Originally engineered to advance humanity, instead [the A.I.] nearly ended it,” a military general warns at one point early on, which is just your cue for the biggest eye-roll you can muster, and it never gets better from here.
In “Atlas,” Jennifer Lopez stars as Atlas Shepherd, a misanthropic data analyst tasked with stopping the world’s first A.I. terrorist, Harlan (Simu Liu, wooden and painfully flat as can get). Of course, there’s personal baggage to her story and a “mysterious past” that the film soon reveals. Because Shepherd is the daughter of the scientist whose A.I. robot first went rogue, recruiting all of the world’s A.I. androids to the cause of destroying humanity — basically Atlas’ bff synthetic humanoid babysitter when she was a child went nuts, and the analyst still believes it was all her fault. This time, it’s personal, “Atlas” essentially says without a trace of irony how cliched and banal the sentiment is. A great war transpired; many nukes and calamities occurred, and as “Atlas” begins, Harlan is on the run, and the world’s various military and intelligence agencies are trying to track him and his armies down.
With this A.I. renegade on the run, off on another planet, Atlas is reluctantly recruited by Colonel Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown) to go on a mission to capture and destroy Harlan as an advisor because she’s the world’s leading authority on A.I. Still, of course, she wants nothing to do with it at first. Eventually, she relents and joins, but her distrust of all things A.I.— including the A.I.-manned Exo-Suits that Banks soldiers wear into combat—is her leading motivation about everything. In this future, humans, especially these human soldiers, link up with A.I. to collectively unite and fight battles, but Atlas’ overriding mistrust soon becomes not only her one-note sour mood but the film’s central theme, which is beaten to death like a dead horse and goes in the most obvious direction possible.
When this big space mission goes awry—Banks telling Atlas before this, don’t worry, Harlan and his armies can’t hack our A.I. exo-suits to the point that it’s comical how clearly things are about to go wrong— she finds herself on a distant planet all by herself, her only hope of saving humanity and salvaging this mission is…, you guessed it, trusting her disembodied A.I. robot Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan).
“Atlas” then adopts something of a buddy comedy dynamic— Lopez and the voice of Cohan fighting, arguing, with Atlas filled with contempt and distrust for the one being that can help save her. With the Exo-Suit and Smith damaged and her oxygen levels depleting, Atlas must quickly choose how to proceed and find the fastest route to finding and defeating Harlan, despite massive odds in his favor, including his army and her lack of any military skills and misgivings about the robot ally that is her only sense of support.
If it all sounds cliché, boring, and bland, that’s because it essentially is. Perhaps the simplest way to explain the film is something of a riff on “Iron Man,” with Lopez playing the Tony Stark character completely mistrusting of the metal suit he is wearing and Smith as the J.A.R.V.I.S.-like robot voice trying to convince her to not only link up so they will be the ultimate fighting force, but you know, trust the process.
This is all “Atlas” can provide: a contentious, angry, irritable lead (Lopez), a patient, understanding, and seemingly empathetic robot voice (Cohan), her warring and distrust, his soft-voiced, “hey, I can help you, just believe me,” soothing and lots of hackneyed and predictable scenarios of conflicts, problems and obstacles until Atlas finally, inevitably agrees to put some faith in the A.I. bot.
But “Atlas” holds no tension, surprises, or suspense, constructed in such a recognizable manner that the audience never once believes Lopez’s Atlas will finally learn to trust Smith. There’s never any suspension of disbelief, and there is no hook because “Atlas” is so monotone and lackluster from the jump. It almost feels… ugh, A.I. generated; it lacks any sense of personality or soul.
Visually, “Atlas” is unfortunate, to put it charitably. Its VFX is mundane, cheap, and unimaginative, the Exo-Suit of it all basically a mish-mash of “Aliens” and “Edge Of Tomorrow” mashed together with Tony Stark’s aforementioned Marvel-made digital man-servant. Everything from “Atlas” seems borrowed and recycled from more exciting movies, and nothing in it feels remotely original.
Lifelessly directed by Brad Peyton, the script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite is even worse, deeply unremarkable, unsurprising, and tiresome, often feeling like it took some ‘90s sci-fi screenplay that Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected, slapped a new coat of paint on it, and resubmitted it to Netflix with a new title. And what it says about Netflix quality control—already deeply in question by the entire industry— well, someone like new Netflix chief Dan Lin really needs to course correct as soon as possible.
Mark Strong, Lana Parrilla, and Abraham Popoola appear in smaller supporting roles. Still, neither can help this tedious misfire (and Popoola, like Liu, is just terrible as one of these A.I. villains). It all ends in a big, noisy action scene, Atlas facing off against Harlan, and you can’t wait for it to end; it’s so exhaustingly mind-numbing. “Atlas” isn’t so much a disastrous film; it’s at least somewhat competently made and doesn’t feature anything alarmingly egregious, per se (other than the risible dialogue). However, its core problem is how aggressively derivative, insipid, and wearisome it all is. There’s almost nothing clever to say about “Atlas.” Still, suppose the film mildly touts the benefits and possibilities of A.I. and how we as a species will acclimatize to advanced adaptive learners. In that case, the main takeaway here is then, if we do come to Jesus with this existential threat, please, lord, please at least let it happen slightly more inventively than this utterly disposable by-the-computer-numbers bore. [D-]
“Atlas” debuts on May 24 on Netflix.