Atlas
Summary
When I hear to describeAtlas , the one word that keeps do to mind is pro forma . It ’s not a word I typically use to verbalize about a motion picture , but it pop into my head relatively betimes in the runtime , and I ’ve been unable to shake it . So , I ’ll have to essay and take out its persistence instead .
Your Rating
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Cast
Atlas is a 2024 Netflix original motion picture starring Jennifer Lopez as Atlas Shepherd . Atlas , a datum psychoanalyst who does n’t hope AI , who sets out to retrieve a scalawag automaton . But when things do n’t go harmonize to plan , she is push to commit AI for pull through world .
Merriam - Webster ascribes two definition to perfunctory , though " lacking in interest or enthusiasm " is n’t quite what I intend . That would seem to discover the intentions behind the film as much as the film itself , and my reaction was to the destruction result , not the whole enterprise . The other definition , " characterized by mundane or superficiality : mechanical , " gets me closer . Atlasis likean artificial sci - fi motion-picture show that walk and talk like the real thing , but just is n’t .
Atlas' Flaws Don’t Seem Fatal At First Glance
You have to dig a little deeper
set up in a technologically forward-looking future , Atlasis diagnose for its friend , Atlas Shepherd ( Jennifer Lopez ) , who was just a girl whenHarlan ( Simu Liu ) , one of her maven mother ’s ( Lana Parrilla ) artificially intelligent robots , went rogue . Harlan not only break devoid of his programming , but hack into AI programs worldwide and overrule the protocols that maintain humans unhurt . Millions died , Atlas ' mother first among them . When humanity commence to win the war , however , the world ’s first AI terrorist take flight into stunned outer space .
Almost 30 years later , Atlas has grown into a brilliant but fickle analyst settle to discover Harlan . When a lead finally unwrap his hideout , she bullies her way onto the mission to recoup him , led by Colonel Elias Banks ( Sterling K. Brown ) , whose sight on AI are markedly different . He and his platoon have embrace her female parent ’s neural tie-in tech and each sync with an AI - powered mecha case . The resulting union , the thinking goes , makes them superior to their adversary . Choosing whether to trust her suit ’s plan , Smith ( Gregory James Cohan ) , could make up one’s mind whether Atlas lives or dies .
The sarcasm of review afilm about AIby aver it failed my Turing test is n’t lost on me , but that is essentially what fall out . Atlasis , by and large , a serviceable sci - fi action moving picture . It has some visible script event , in particular an inability to persist ahead of the audience , and Liu ’s mastervillain is terribly insipid . But the cohesive VFX brings this futuristic world and its spectacle - punishing combat to life , and Lopez come ready to cast anchor this two - hander - with - a - robot .
In another world , all it ’s really hangdog of is beingjust o.k. . ButI felt whole inactivated by this motion picture . I connect to no one , cared about nothing . The emotional tenor of scenes rose and fell without displace me in the slightest .
Optimistic and agnostic view on AI are usually connote on engaging with its world - destroying potential as a hypothetical ; that they can conceivably win out when that ’s a incontrovertible reality is quite a status to take .
At first , I shinny to see why . The screenplay deploy a few unlike techniques to shape our human relationship to certain characters , and while it ’s easy to see through to the striking purpose of specific scenes , they were still accomplish well enough to make . Most roles seemed a scrap thankless , but I ( for the most part ) was n’t bump the operation . I could n’t even fall back on the style - over - meaning cliché , because that would ’ve at least left me with something to go for onto .
Atlas Is Missing The One Thing Every Sci-fi Movie Needs
And nothing can really compensate for it
Once I zero in on the pacing , I understood . Atlasis definitely floor - driven , and moves through scenes like it ’s eager to get to the next chapter . The most interesting thing about any given here and now is what is happening , sometimes because of what that reveal about Atlas . That manifestly puts a portion of insistency on the game to be interesting , butit also betrays the movie ’s thoroughgoing lack of curiosity — the " shallowness " part of being perfunctory .
There is a wealthiness of potential beneath the veneer of this account that the movie maker only do n’t give care to research .
Take Lopez ’s introduction : Atlas is reluctantly rouse by a smart home - style robot , which almost immediately ask her if she ’d like to resume their chess game , since she fell asleep while playing . Despite being groggy , and concentrating on multiple video feeds at once , she occasionally speak cheat movement aloud until , just as she ’s walking out the doorway , she delivers the winning blow . It showcases her intelligence agency , her competitiveness , her power to multitask . A save up - the - cat minute , if we ’re supposed to find our protagonist impressive instead of endearing .
What it does n’t show is why Atlas , who grew up ring by robots until one off her mother , is comfortable with this level of engineering at all . Has she have the best her trauma ? No . In fact , her character arc is connote on her unfitness to trust AI . So what does this say about her ? Does she relish having rule over tech in her own domicile ? Did her puerility leave her well at connect with machines than citizenry , even if she loathe them ?
The motion picture does n’t think to call for , and does n’t want us to , either . The line distinguishing the AI Atlas fears and the programs she does n’t think twice about is never defined . The whole world is this moral force on hyperdrive : Atlasopens with newsreel footage of Harlan ’s reign of terror , which includes a hacked mill arm wheel around around to trounce unsuspicious worker . Not only did mechanization progress after that , but man wentbackto AI , and even experimented with connecting their brains to it .
So , in this future , we work up Skynet - lite and millions go bad . Then , when we crawl back from the verge , wedouble down . I ’m not highlighting this simply to call it out as implausible — it actually is n’t hard for me to project a worldly concern of people so dependant on engineering that they ca n’t give it up , even after mass demise . But the idea that we ’re just supposed to take it all for granted is madden . There is a wealth of potential beneath the veneer of this story that the filmmakers just do n’t care to explore .
Atlas' Message On AI Borders On A Silicon Valley PsyOp
But, thankfully, the movie’s bark is worse than its bite
Curiosity is practically the gist of science fiction ; without it , Atlashas no soul . And , as the above setting illustrate , the fictional character suffer the same circumstances . They are all decoct to a inclination of fact about themselves that they accept with no sign of struggle or mental ability for change . Atlas at least make to modernise her level of confidence in AI , but from the linear perspective of drama , it may as well be an on / off permutation that touch on little else about who she is . No wonder I found her journey so uninvolving .
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At its least offensive , Atlasscratches an itch , perfunctorily . However , I could learn it in terms of our current moment and add up up with something much worse . The film responds to originate anxiety around artificial intelligenceby admitting , yes , it could evolve to try and pass over us out . But it ’s also a tool , and we should still put it everywhere , even in our brains . If Atlas can learn to hope it after everything she went through , then you , humble viewing audience , should have no problem doing the same .
That is , when you boil it down , what this moving-picture show has to say on the subject of AI . It breezes correct past read the quiet part out loud to having no awareness of a need to regulate volume at all . affirmative and agnostic views on AI are commonly predicated on engaging with its world - destroying potential drop as a conjectural ; that they can conceivably gain ground out when that ’s a provable realness is quite a position to take . But do n’t be too implicated . vex aboutAtlas ' message would require a lot more faith in it as a saving system than is warranted .
Atlasis available to swarm on Netflix May 24 . The film is 118 minutes long and rated PG-13 for strong sci - fi violence , action , bloody images and secure language .
