Jennifer Lopez & Simu Liu in Netflix’s AI Robotic Sci-Fi

Technically, Atlas is a sci-fi flick. Set some unspecified variety of years sooner or later, the Brad Peyton-directed function considerations a knowledge analyst (Jennifer Lopez) tasked with stopping “the world’s first AI terrorist,” a robotic named Harlan (Simu Liu) who’d damaged his personal programming to orchestrate the slaughter of tens of millions.

However Blade Runner this isn’t, and never simply because its tepid script and uninspired visuals place Atlas throughout the ever-expanding field of Netflix motion pictures finest half-watched on planes. The robotic conflict is mere pretext for the saga of a girl studying to like once more, starring a star whose public persona is basically constructed round her willingness to let herself love once more. By no means thoughts the truth that there isn’t a precise human love curiosity — in construction and theme, Atlas is a J.Lo rom-com in shiny metallic packaging.

Like its prickly heroine, although, Atlas takes time to disclose its true self. The primary act performs like a glossier ripoff of Aliens, with Atlas being recruited by worldwide navy normal Sales space (Mark Robust) to assist nook Harlan on the distant planet he’s been hiding on for the previous 28 years. Not solely is Atlas a genius, as telegraphed by a morning routine that features beating her holographic digital assistant at chess for the 71st sport in a row. She is aware of Harlan extra intimately than maybe any residing soul: The daughter of his late creator (Lana Parilla), she’s the closest factor he has to a sister.

Understandably, Harlan’s betrayal has left Atlas guarded, suspicious of AIs and cautious of being hacked. The place Colonel Banks (Sterling Okay. Brown) and his squadron tout the advantages of Neural Hyperlinks — earpieces that facilitate excellent two-way integration between human brains and AI-controlled armors, like J.A.R.V.I.S. and Iron Man’s bond on steroids — Atlas insists on taking the mission totally analog. (“Paper? The place’d you discover a printer?” a youthful soldier laughs as she palms out copies of the briefing.) However when the ship is attacked instantly upon touchdown, Atlas is compelled right into a mech go well with of her very personal, this one managed by an AI calling himself Smith (Gregory James Cohan in a voice-only function).

It’s right here that Atlas‘ actual journey lastly reveals itself. Atlas and Smith press on with their authentic mission to neutralize Harlan, below relentless assault from his forces. However lengthy stretches of the two-hour run time see Atlas alone in her go well with with solely Smith for firm. She lets her guard down little by little, opening up about her childhood and fascinating in friendly-ish debate about what counts as life. He grows extra fluent in her native language of sarcasm. We would not be rooting for them to kiss — actually, I don’t even understand how that’d work — however Cohan and Lopez’s chemistry elevates in any other case unremarkable dialogue into passably amusing, sometimes touching banter.

Because the hazard round them intensifies, so does their connection. Atlas and Smith inch nearer to 100% synchronization, at which level they’ll develop into, as Banks had beforehand defined, “not human or AI however one thing new, an ideal symbiosis.” This appears a lot much less cool than it sounds; onscreen, it primarily manifests as an annoying behavior of ending one another’s sentences.

Atlas demonstrates little or no curiosity on the whole in regards to the social or philosophical points raised by its premise. What’s to stop the present era of androids from going rogue as Harlan as soon as did? Atlas vaguely explains the brand new fashions are simply “higher.” Who’re the AIs with out their homo sapiens counterparts? We by no means meet any solo AIs however Harlan. How did our relationship to expertise change after Harlan broke so many machines freed from their programming? We don’t see sufficient of on a regular basis life on this world to guess.

What the movie does need to get into is Atlas’ belief points. Ostensibly, the stakes of Atlas’ mission are as excessive as they get, since Harlan poses a risk to all of Earth. However as a result of the story’s scope barely extends past Atlas and Smith, with no different characters or relationships significant sufficient to spend money on, her beef with Harlan reads as completely private. He’s akin to the final word poisonous ex, who left Atlas shattered and even now refuses to depart her alone. By the identical logic, Smith performs the function of the brand new beau who heroically teaches Atlas that it’s protected to like once more. When you advised me Atlas began as a lower phase from This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, I’d most likely consider you.

The interstellar battle involves a head, in fact, within the final and longest of the film’s polished however completely unmemorable CG-heavy motion sequences. However its emotional climax arrives simply afterward within the type of a heartfelt speech extolling, amongst different issues, “small quiet gestures of affection.”

For a futuristic, planet-hopping journey, Atlas feels awfully tiny; as a romance (minus the precise romance), it treads no new emotional terrain. However there’s one thing oddly relatable, even romantic about its hope that therapeutic one’s coronary heart could be step one in saving the world.