The Stream: Pretty much every AI apocalypse movie ever

The Big Screen: Harlan’s action scene and Smith’s humor

The Final Bill: You can’t get more predictable than a J. Lo movie with AI

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Brad Peyton
Writers: Leo Sardarian, Aron Eli Coleite
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13 for strong sci-fi violence, action, bloody images and strong language.
Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes
Production Companies: ASAP Entertainment, Berlanti Productions, Moving Picture Company
Platform: Released on Netflix May 24, 2024
Notable Trailers: Hit Man, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, A Family Affair

Disclaimer: very little AI was used in creating this post.

Welcome back, Streamers! This weekend Netflix graced us with another subpar Jennifer Lopez flick, Atlas. I think I just gave away the ending to this review, but let’s just go through the motions. This movie follows Atlas Shepherd (Lopez), a top data analyst, who has a deep-rooted mistrust for artificial intelligence. Atlas tags along on a world saving mission to stop Harlan (Liu), an AI that’s called for war against all humans. Atlas is the only one that knows how he thinks; but, when plans go wrong as they typically do, she finds herself in a dilemma of trusting an AI or being killed by one. Space travel, AI, and robot hijinks ensue.

As I’ve already said, this movie is subpar, but why? Is it that the writers and producers stole some part of every other robot/AI takeover movie from the last 20-30 years? Is it 50+ year old Jennifer Lopez playing a character that is supposed to be 39? Is it that the movie is a solid 30 minutes too long? Is it the CGI that at times looks cool but also just looks like a video game excerpt? Is it that most of the movie is just J. Lo being unreasonable talking to a glowing ball on a screen? Or is it because the main villain is barely present in the movie? Or is it some combination of everything and more? Yep, that’s it – the last one.

So many things are wrong in this movie. Nothing is particularly horrible like you’re watching a Tubi Original that you have to DJ just to hear, but it’s just not executed well. The CGI for this big space movie just looks fake or like an AI made it. The biggest offender is the final fight where it literally looks like a video game version of Simu with a whip. J. Lo’s character is whiny and unnecessarily skeptical for someone that is supposed to be so smart and analytical. Anyway, the saving grace of this movie is whoever wrote the lines for the AI, Smith. Smith was great, but his scenes are unfortunately dragged down by J. Lo. If there is one reason to watch this movie, it is Smith.

Long story short, on top of Atlas being a typical J-Lo pretty poor acting experience, this is definitely a typical “AI is going to take over and kill people” movie. The only things that are slightly worth watching in this movie are Smith’s humor and Harlan’s video game fighting, both are far too little for this movie. I quietly admit that This Is Me Now is worth watching over this movie but don’t tell anyone that I watched it. If this came out in the theater, you’d be asking for your money back but because this is on Netflix, there’s no need to rush to stream this single popped popcorn kernel.