Netflix movie review: Atlas – AI helps Jennifer Lopez save the world in sci-fi thriller

2/5 stars

Mere months after Hollywood’s actors and writers reached an agreement with studios to protect their likenesses and creative output, it appears Netflix is already doubling down on its advocacy of artificial intelligence.

The streaming platform’s new science fiction thriller, Atlas, starring Jennifer Lopez and Simu Liu, might as well bear the tagline, “How I learned to stop worrying and love AI”.

It is set in a near future when Earth is at the mercy of the world’s first “AI terrorist”. Lopez’s jaded heroine must overcome her distrust of technology and put her life in the hands of a sentient machine to save the planet from Armageddon.

Humanity’s relationship with technology has been a fertile topic for sci-fi writers since the dawn of the genre, with the fear of artificial intelligence eclipsing our own at the heart of some of its best works, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Matrix.

Atlas adopts a decidedly more positive stance, suggesting that humanity’s continued survival relies on achieving synergy between man and machine.

Directed by Brad Peyton, responsible for the forgettable Dwayne Johnson vehicles San Andreas and Rampage, Atlas takes its narrative cues most obviously from James Cameron’s 1986 classic Aliens.

As in that film, a female protagonist with prior experience of a non-human threat accompanies a squad of heavily armed marines on an off-world combat mission.

Simu Liu as Harlan in a still from Atlas. Photo: Netflix

Rather than extraterrestrial xenomorphs, the antagonist is rogue android Harlan (Liu), who has vowed to stop humanity destroying the Earth by any means at his disposable. When the rest of the squad is wiped out upon arrival, it falls to Lopez’s data analyst Atlas Shepherd to take up arms herself.

Her survival relies upon forming a successful neural link with an AI-powered mech suit named Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan), something she is initially loath to do because of her innate distrust of technology – the result of a tragedy from her past.

Lopez has built a career playing mature, feisty women navigating a male-dominated world, and is absolutely in her element here.

Despite appearances from Sterling K. Brown and Mark Strong in supporting roles, it is Shepherd’s frosty banter with Smith that provides the film’s strongest relationship in an otherwise effects-heavy, overlong action thriller offering few surprises.

A still from Atlas. Photo: Netflix

One could argue that the film is allegorical, addressing society’s attitudes towards any number of marginalised demographics.

At a time when AI is becoming frighteningly ubiquitous in daily life, however, Atlas perhaps should be taken at face value, while its overwhelmingly positive stance is cause for genuine concern.

Atlas is streaming on Netflix.

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