ATLAS
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Mark Strong, and Abraham Popoola
Director: Brad Peyton
CALEB
Atlas is as generic as sci-fi movies come, and its bland, underdeveloped world is brought to life with some of the ugliest CGI I’ve ever witnessed. The action sequences look like weightless video game cutscenes, and the green screen utilisation is comedically terrible. For what it’s worth, Jennifer Lopez does a decent job, even if far too much of the movie revolves around her screaming from the inside of a mech’s cockpit. I know Atlas is a film about embracing A.I., but something tells me the screenwriters may have embraced it a little too much.
QUENTIN
Even with the lowest of expectations, Atlas is a complete failure. You’re essentially watching Jennifer Lopez Facetime with an A.I. system amongst a collection of terribly rendered CGI visuals. And when I say “terribly rendered” — man, are they bad. They are the kind of super glossy and plastic-y looking cutscenes you would find in the cheapest of early 2000s video games. That aside, the story (such as it is), is a hodge-podge of other, better sci-fi movies, including The Terminator, Aliens, and Pacific Rim. Hopefully, this puts the nail in the “apocalyptic A.I.” genre’s coffin for a while.
