After 28 years of peering nervously on the skies, the I.C.N. captures an A.I. bot identified to be related to Harlan. One thing is afoot. A scientist named Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is named in because the world’s main knowledgeable on Harlan — partly as a result of her mom, Val Shepherd, the founding father of Shepherd Robotics, created Harlan and raised him alongside Atlas. On the request of Gen. Jake Boothe (Mark Sturdy), Atlas boards a spacecraft commanded by Col. Elias Banks (Sterling Ok. Brown), headed for the planet the place they’ve found Harlan has been hiding out.
You’ll be able to inform from these names that “Atlas,” which Peyton directed from a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, is very referential. (Or, maybe, by-product.) Harlan shares a reputation with Harlan Ellison, the eminent speculative fiction writer. Atlas is bearing the burden of the world on her shoulders; Lopez, who was additionally a producer on the film, flings herself into the position with abandon, the type of efficiency that’s particularly spectacular on condition that she’s largely by herself all through. Her character’s final title, Shepherd, appears each metaphorical and perhaps a hyperlink to a beloved character from the sci-fi present “Firefly.” I may maintain digging, however you get the thought. At instances “Atlas” looks like pure pastiche, and it appears to be like, in a vogue we’re getting used to seeing on the streamers, type of low-cost, darkish, plasticky and pretend, significantly within the large motion sequences. Science fiction usually earns its place in reminiscence by envisioning one thing new and startling — however with “Atlas,” we’ve seen all of it earlier than.
It does, nonetheless, attempt to pose some potent questions. For some cause, the extermination of hundreds of thousands of people by A.I. has not halted using synthetic intelligence on this world because it did in, say, the universe of “Dune.” (Truly, that type of checks out.) As a substitute, they’re ubiquitous, companions that play chess and regulate your property heating system but additionally discuss to you and control you. Regardless of having an A.I. in her house, Atlas is extraordinarily suspicious of the expertise. So a lot of the film’s stress comes from her relationship to an A.I. named Smith (maybe one other reference, this time to “The Matrix”), with which she’ll should sync her personal thoughts to outlive.
It’s an intriguing idea, since an open query each onscreen and in actual life is whether or not A.I. is inherently good, or unhealthy, or impartial, or another fourth factor we haven’t fairly put phrases to but. Generally, the flicks — like Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Synthetic Intelligence” — have urged that these creatures we might construct are able to loyalty and love, and that humanity’s proclivity for the other is the actual drawback. Generally (as in, say, Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina”), we find yourself on their aspect.
“Atlas” can be primarily involved with the morality of synthetic intelligence, and who’s at fault if all of it goes fallacious. That is the place issues get just a little bizarre. In spite of everything, it’s laborious to neglect that A.I. itself was a sticking level in final yr’s Hollywood strikes, during which Netflix, which is distributing “Atlas,” was very a lot a participant. Is A.I. going to destroy the trade — perhaps lots of industries? Or will it save the world? Is Atlas proper to be skeptical?
