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I already knew while watching the Jennifer Lopez Netflix sci-fi vehicle “Atlas” (now streaming on the aforementioned service) that it was gonna get torn to shreds by my fellow critics. It’s hip to hate on Netflix original movies. People also seem to like to rip on the actress/pop star when she’s tabloid fodder and said hot goss involves Ben Affleck, which it currently does.
Is “Atlas” a good movie? No – not especially – but it is a fun and entertaining one.
Do you like the “Titanfall” video games? Do you dig Lopez and/or her famed posterior? Are you down with any of director Brad Peyton’s cheesy collaborations with Dwayne Johnson, i.e. “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” “San Andreas” and “Rampage”? Are you into seeing awesome character actors (Sterling K. Brown, Mark Strong) be underutilized but still being afforded the opportunity to pay their mortgages?
If you answered, “Yes,” to any of these questions it’s safe to assume you’ll enjoy “Atlas” to at least some degree.
Lopez stars as Atlas Shepherd, a military analyst in future Los Angeles. As a child (and played by Briella Guiza) Atlas’ mother Dr. Val Shepherd (Lana Parrilla) invents a sophisticated form of AI named Harlan (Simu Liu), which draws attention away from her daughter.
Harlan ultimately turns on his maker resulting in her death, kills an additional 3 million people, teams up with another AI asshole named Casca Decius (Abraham Popoola) and the two piss off to space where their collective threat can better terrorize humanity.
We flash-forward 28 years (meaning the 54-year-old Lopez is playing a 38-year-old … believable). Harlan and Casca have reared their ugly heads again and Gen. Jake Boothe (Strong) wants Atlas to assist in capturing them despite the reservations of Col. Elias Banks (Brown). Banks and his fellow Rangers are symbiotically synched to mechs – a process Atlas has absolutely zero interest in engaging with due to childhood trauma.
When the mission goes sideways Atlas has no choice but to synch with a mech by the name of Smith (voiced by the VelociPastor himself, Gregory James Cohan) in order to ensure her survival.
“Atlas” is supposedly the first female-fronted Netflix flick with a $100 million budget … and it shows. This looks expensive AF. It’s ultimately a fairly simple two-hander between Atlas and Smith – and their relationship actually has resonance – but there’s also scale to everything surrounding them. Peyton is an old hand at the fantastical action stuff and he and his crew sell it with aplomb.
Lopez’s performance is much better than her hairdo. Strong and Brown are seasoned pros who do a lot with a little. Liu is phew as his performance sorta stinks, but I think this has more to do with the material screenwriters Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite provide him with as opposed to the actor’s abilities. I really enjoyed Cohan’s voice work as Smith and feel he does the brunt of the emotional heavy lifting in his scenes with Lopez, but part of me really wanted Jim Parsons in Sheldon Cooper mode for the role … shit would’ve been hilarious.
“Atlas” is a hard PG-13 (robot heads get gooily and graphically smashed, F-bombs are dropped verbally and in writing) that will likely appeal to 13-year-old boys and those of us who are 13-year-old boys at heart.
As a gamer who played numerous games with the same vibes, i recommend this 10/10