Atlas

Atlas

Jennifer Lopez is one of a few names in the entertainment industry who have kept alive the belief in super stardom, and it’s not hard to see why. In just the last few years alone, as a producer, actor and singer, she’s been behind films such as 2019’s ‘Hustlers’ (a heist flick), rom-coms ‘Marry Me’ and ‘Shotgun Wedding’ (2022) and action-thriller ‘The Mother’ (2023), a self-funded project about her life journey titled ‘This Is Me Now’ (2024) and even performed at a Superbowl halftime show in 2020 among many other projects across genres and mediums.

It’s almost as though she tells us with every move that yes, indeed she is the whole package, while everyone else whines about what kind of movies we don’t get anymore or stars they don’t make like they used to. But really, can you blame them? J.Lo has an irresistible presence that lights up any screen even if it’s small; even if it’s bad (and some of these aforementioned movies are).

And this week is no exception: Brad Peyton’s cheesy streaming sci-fi “Atlas,” set against a backdrop of artificial intelligence gone wrong doesn’t hold up next to “Minority Report” or “I, Robot” or “Gravity,” all of which co-writers Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite seem to have been channeling at different points. But look past the dreary CGI and some clumsy set-pieces: The movie still has Lopez, brawny and fiery-eyed throughout every dumb line “Atlas” throws her way.

Those cliches are like the second-best part of the experience (after J.Lo, obviously). So it’s too bad that the movie was released straight to streaming. Don’t knowingly hokey judgments like “Eat shit!” from recent Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown (“American Fiction”) before he blows up an entire AI-controlled settlement and “Let’s go, bitch!” delivered by Lopez herself work best in a crowded theater?

But you’ll have to settle for your own company as you follow brilliant data analyst Atlas Shepherd (Lopez) first through a cartoonishly rendered future Los Angeles and then outer space a time when AI is dominant but regulated by a special unit, and a renegade robot named Harlan feared even after fleeing Earth 28 years earlier with two very distracting blue contact lenses. What if he comes back with an army, and the wrong kind of AI takes over?

Like Will Smith’s Del in “I, Robot,” Atlas here is an AI-hating traditionalist who only likes things that are analog. But when a mission she goes on with Colonel Elias Banks (Brown) sends her to GR39, an unstable planet under his leadership that Simon the AI persona she needs help from because she loses her whole team during the mission and gets stuck inside one of its mech suits controls well, do I really need to finish this sentence? No matter how many times these movies tell us otherwise! Can’t this ever-cynical-and-sarcastic character learn to trust more quickly so we can watch them enjoy each other’s company?

Most of the second act builds out from Atlas’ issues with trust, working harder than Gareth Edwards’ recent “The Creator” did to prove not all AI is bad. Right, no one doubts this technology can be useful; it just has be shaped and piloted by human hands that know what they’re doing at any given moment on any given day in any given mood. But if it’s going to insist on dressing like a movie about trust in human relationships, the dynamic between Atlas and the increasingly anthropomorphized Simon (so human-like that he learns sarcasm and many cuss words) doesn’t hint at it very deeply or relevantly.

“Atlas” goes further off the rails later on as it reveals more of the connection between Atlas and Harlan amid visual designs and thematic ideas that feel borrowed from other movies. And for a “our future depends on this” type tale, the stakes never quite coalesce. But “Atlas” does have J.Lo in all her starry glory at its center. It’s not nearly enough, but it’ll do.

Watch Atlas For Free On Gomovies.