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Netflix is clearly embracing a bombastic summer spectacle in the vein of Amazon’s’The Tomorrow War’, with the new film ‘Atlas’.That is, original sci-fi flicks with hefty production budgets and killer casts make up for the pastiche of well-trodden ideas. After a teaser trailer for Atlas was released with an interesting cast to say, Netflix has put the pedal to the metal in the official trailer for the upcoming sci-fi action adventure movie.
This means that Apple isn’t the only streaming giant doubling down on science fiction and space-centric content like “Constellation” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”.
The seemingly thin story of Atlas follows the titular Atlas shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust for artificial intelligence who wants to help capture a renegade AI with whom she shares a troubled past. This hunt therefore takes Atlas and his less fortunate troops to another planet, where an AI named Harlan has dominated and is planning another strike against planet Earth. The plot twist of the film is the fact that she has to partner up with a machine-bound AI named Smith to get the job done, despite her distrust for artificial intelligence.
As the film’s core, it is all strongly reminiscent of Titanfall 2’s story campaign, and that is a compliment. However, the surrounding world building and the plotting don’t look too strong; hence, don’t set your expectations too high, but we wouldn’t mind getting a robust sci-fi out of this one. At least Brad Peyton’s knack for strong visuals after making up for “San Andreas” and Rampage’s paper thin scripts is on display here.
Joining J.Lo in the cast list are Simu Liu, who has featured in Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Barbie, as the rogue AI Harlan. Sterling K. Brown (The Predator) as colonel Elias Bankse, Gregory James Cohan, voicing the friendly AI Smith, Abraham Popoola as casca Decius, Lana Parrilla (“once upon a time) as val shepherd, and the always reliable Mark Strong (“Kingsman”) as general Jake Boothe.
Brad Peyton directs the script, originally written by Leo Sardarian (“Start Up”) and later rewritten by Aron Eli Coleite. The cinematography is directed by and handled by John Schwatzman (“Jurassic World”). Netflix then produced a poster to go with this trailer, which is all about the protagonists and reminds the subscribers that Atlas drops on May 24.
