dir. Brad Peyton
Films have been exploring the impact of AI for decades, but few have done it quite as poorly as Atlas. The eponymous character (Jennifer Lopez) hates AI, and is keen to track down an AI robot who went rogue and killed millions of people. With Lopez wearing one blank facial expression for 99% of the runtime, Atlas herself has a thinner personality than a robot – two colleagues genuinely argue over whether she is “rigid and hostile” or “driven and determined”, though we never actually see her exhibit any defining traits except talking about how much she likes coffee. After a mission goes wrong, she must learn to trust AI before she can succeed, and the film hits pretty standard plot points with no innovations. The only surprise comes in the reveal that Atlas herself is responsible for unleashing the robot who’s killed millions. This in itself isn’t the surprise, as it’s obvious some dark event caused her mistrust of AI – the surprise is more that Atlas seems to suffer no trauma or even much lingering guilt over this. Sure, she was a child, but it seems bizarre that she was then able to proceed and build a relatively thriving life. It’s difficult to relate to Atlas’ fight against AI when she possesses less emotion than any computer programme out there. Much like AI itself right now, Atlas supposedly does a lot of clever important things but falls massively short of its creators’ intentions.
BMDb 