Atlas

Okay I know that the internet is on a JLo hate train, and they should be, she’s awful. But you know I can’t judge a movie properly before I see it. So I have forced myself to sit through Atlas. This seems to be a passion project for her but there are other people involved. I am going into this pretty blind, I am not even sure what the film is about so me and my opinion are a complete clean slate. Can the rest of the cast save this movie from JLo…that is the question.

Okay well right off the bat quoting Asimov in a film about the dangers of AI is a little heavy handed and quite frankly he would hate it. Second of all the AI terrorist thing has been done to death and there is really nothing new or inventive here to justify the existence of this movie. It being set in the future is simply not enough.

JLo plays the daughter of the creator of this AI terrorist, and I have got to wonder if she has it in her film contracts that she only plays characters that get raved about. Like does she only take roles if it is in the script that she is the most brilliant or beautiful or talented person in the film? Cause there was some really unnecessary exposition regarding her character. So either JLo is a narcissist or the writing of this movie was really bad and those are in fact the only two options.

So….they are hunting this AI terrorist but they continue to use neural links to machines as if that is at all safe. So everyone on this mission is upsettingly stupid?

JLo has never sat in an acting class and no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. This woman is incapable of subtlety. She really only has two facial expressions, angry and vacant. She thinks intensity means getting louder. It's really hard to watch.

A lot of CGI fighting, I highly doubt they used anything practical on this set. It was very clearly all greenscreen and computer generated. Oh good, some Zach Snyder ass slow motion…that’s a choice. And now she is stranded on this planet…every single one of these plot points is tired as hell. I feel like AI cobbled together this script, there isn’t a single original thought here. This suit looks like some shit from the third Spy Kids movie. Is she really gonna be in this mech suit the whole time? She is not a good enough actress to handle acting in isolation. That takes an extraordinary amount of skill that she simply does not have.

Her whole unit dies, because of course they do. Nothing is more predictable than that.

Also the exposition about what dictates AI and what dictates life is so poorly written. It's cheesy ass dialogue that serves no narrative purpose. Show don’t tell seems to be lost on these people. God this goes on for so long. The final fight scene is so terrible. The pacing is slow, the weaponry makes no sense and honestly Atlas lasting that long in a fight makes no sense.

The film doesn't seem to understand what it wants to say. It's like someone (JLo) just learned what AI is, or just learned how to read and now this exists.

I think the biggest issue with this movie is that it isn’t saying anything. Films about AI generally have some commentary to make about it, there is a warning somewhere. But Atlas fails to do that in even the most basic way. The bonds between the AI in the mech suits and their users is portrayed as positive, as something connected, real and alive. But at the same time they fear this one form of AI. Yet they don’t really seem to learn from it. It feels like the writers wanted to seem literate by name dropping Asimov and Atlas but they seem to fundamentally misunderstand both. Now contrary to popular belief the name drop of Atlas has nothing to do with Ayn Rand, it is a half-assed cheesy reference to Atlas himself who carried the world on his shoulders. This is in direct reference to the main character emotionally carrying the responsibility of the deaths caused by Harlen. Yes it is in fact that stupid. The name of the AI terrorist, Harlen, is an obvious reference to Harlen Ellison, yet another science fiction writer who was known for being argumentative and contentious. And last but not least we have the obvious fact that Asmiov would hate this movie, for just about every reason possible. It's poorly written, it doesn’t have a firm grasp on science or technology and there is no reason or message behind it. It genuinely feels like an AI generated script of a movie about AI. 0/10, no redeeming qualities.