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Sci-Fi Movies

Netflix's Sci-Fi Movie 'Atlas': AI Apocalypse Blockbuster Gets 'Shocking' Reviews (tomsguide.com) 94

Posted by EditorDavid from the Atlas-shrugged dept.
Space.com calls it a movie "adding more combustible material to the inferno of AI unease sweeping the globe." Its director tells them James Cameron was a huge inspiration, saying Atlas "has an Aliens-like vibe because of the grounded, grittiness to it." (You can watch the movie's trailer here...)

But Tom's Guide says "the reviews are just as shocking as the movie's AI." Its "audience score" on Rotten Tomatoes is 55% — but its aggregate score from professional film critics is 16%. The Hollywood Reporter called it "another Netflix movie to half-watch while doing laundry." ("The star plays a data analyst forced to team up with an AI robot in order to prevent an apocalypse orchestrated by a different AI robot...") The site Giant Freakin Robot says "there seems to be a direct correlation between how much money the streaming platform spends on green screen effects and how bad the movie is" (noting the film's rumored budget of $100 million)...

But Tom's Guide defends it as a big-budget sci-fi thriller that "has an interesting premise that makes you think about the potential dangers of AI progression." Our world has always been interested in computers and machines, and the very idea of technology turning against us is unsettling. That's why "Atlas" works as a movie, but professional critics have other things to say. Ross McIndoe from Slant Magazine said: "Atlas seems like a story that should have been experienced with a gamepad in hand...." Todd Gilchrist from Variety didn't enjoy the conventional structure that "Atlas" followed...

However, even though the score is low and the reviews are pretty negative, I don't want to completely bash this movie... If I'm being completely honest, most movies and TV shows nowadays are taken too seriously. The more general blockbusters are supposed to be entertaining and fun, with visually pleasing effects that keep you hooked on the action. This is much like "Atlas", which is a fun watch with an unsettling undertone focused on the dangers of evolving AI...

Being part of the audience, we're supposed to just take it in and enjoy the movie as a casual viewer. This is why I think you should give "Atlas" a chance, especially if you're big into dramatic action sequences and have enjoyed movies like "Terminator" and "Pacific Rim".
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Netflix's Sci-Fi Movie 'Atlas': AI Apocalypse Blockbuster Gets 'Shocking' Reviews More

Netflix's Sci-Fi Movie 'Atlas': AI Apocalypse Blockbuster Gets 'Shocking' Reviews

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  • ("The star plays a data analyst forced to team up with an AI robot in order to prevent an apocalypse orchestrated by a different AI robot...")

    Sounds like it's basically a remake of I, Robot, but with enough changes to appease the copyright gods. Funny how that formula almost always seems to produce a terrible movie, like how The Darkest Minds was pretty much just a terrible X-men rip-off.

  • bad comp (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @12:56PM (#64500765) Homepage

    Mentioning Atlas and Terminator in the same sentence suggests that Atlas is somehow comparable to Terminator.

    I mean, one can compare ANYTHING, I suppose. But this is sort of like comparing a Little League T-Baller to a Major League player....

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by vivian ( 156520 )

      Having just watched this a few days ago, the first impression I got from it is that it's more like Aliens, with a lead female character who has major emotional scarring from previous encounters with the foe, warns about how dangerous it is to the grunts who promptly ignore her, and predictably ends poorly for the latter.The biggest plot hole is they should have just nuked the planet from orbit - just like Ripley suggested in Aliens - since it's a basically uninhabitable hellhole it's not like the place woul

  • It's not Shakespeare (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @12:59PM (#64500781)

    Why do critics always expect every piece of entertainment to be Dickens or Shakespeare?

    FFS... all I wanted was some action with lots of CGI and VFX with some sort of story-line thrown in just to hold stuff loosely together and that's exactly what this movie delivered.

    Is it my favourite movie -- far from it ... but it was a pleasant enough way to waste a couple of hours.

    JLo isn't my favourite actor and it's hard to watch "Jenny from the block" fighting an AI robot that looks like he should be in a kungfu movie but it is what it is -- mindless action scifi fantasy entertainment.

    Some people need to learn that if they don't like the taste, simply don't drink *this* coolaide.

    • Why do critics always expect every piece of entertainment to be Dickens or Shakespeare?

      I agree with this sentiment. In a world where sportsball exists as a massively popular entertainment, where it's just some dudes throwing a ball again, there's room for a dumb 'splosions movie.

      That said, I haven't seen this so maybe it truly is crap.

    • Why do critics always expect every piece of entertainment to be Dickens or Shakespeare?

      Its the $200K english lit degree from an ivy league school. They can't get to the full pretentiousness mode they were trained for given the community college level movies.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Why do critics always expect every piece of entertainment to be Dickens or Shakespeare?

      Because that's what we ask of them. We want them to tell us whether a thing is good -- how many stars? Thumbs up or down? Seondarily, we really want them validate *our* opinions about a thing and get mad at them when they don't.

      It's pointless. If you like something an expert's feelings about it shouldn't change that. And it's hopeless. A movie you can spend a tolerably entertaining mindless hour and a half on isn't going to land the same with someone who isn't allowed to turn off his brain. Imagine ha

      • Except nobody called a "critic" today does any of that. Instead what they do is deliberately celebrate ugliness and awfulness in all its forms, denigrate everyone who doesn't play along as the next Hitler, and demonize everything that's actually beautiful or well made or entertaining.

    • Maybe this particular movie shouldn't make you start a subscription to Netflix. It remains useful information along with the trailer, like to help me decide to get top shelf microwave popcorn or the coin-op variety. Like should I start streaming with The Spy Who Dumped Me instead, but settle down, this is only an example

  • When there's a dramatic difference between so called professional reviewers and hordes of normal people, I go with the normal people.

    What training or education is required to be a "professional" reviewer, anyway? They need to say something dramatic to get clicks.

    • When there's a dramatic difference between so called professional reviewers and hordes of normal people, I go with the normal people.

      Yeah, it was great back when we could actually DO that on Netflix...

      • I've found rotten tomato user ratings to generally be pretty fair and accurately match my tastes. Ymmv.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The difference is that professional reviewers review anything, while normal viewers are more likely to watch films they expect to like. I personally would never watch a Transformers film, so I'm hardly likely to go on RT and post a 0% review of it.
    • 55% audience review is not exactly a great endorsement. The only difference here is that the average bloke had seen one or two prior movies with the exact same premise and poor execution. The more professional reviewers had to endure 26 in just the last two years. If you want to know which score lines up with your tastes better, consider how many movies you actually watch.

      • Agreed 55 isn't great but not necessarily unwatchable. There are plenty of meh user rated flicks that are ok to sit through on a quiet night or in the background while doing something else.

        • Unwatchable, nah. Buying a ticket in a theatre, nah. Bue you've got to understand the professionals critics here. They've seen it 26 times. They honestly thinl you're bettwr off watching something else.

          • They should take into account their own cynicism and rate it from the perspective of the masses that aren't required to study every scene and write a review after.

            Having just seen it tonight, it was watchable, not good for a theatre ticket or online rental but was entertaining. I'd give it a 55%.
            I think 15% says it's completely unwatchable trash under any circumstances which is not a fair rating for this light easy to watch cgi action flick.

            As far as watch something else goes, sure that would be nice if th

            • I checked metacritic rating for more granular data. Half the critics called it bad. Slightly more than half the viewers called it bad. The difference is that most of the remaining critics called it mediocre, while most of the remaining viewers called it great. Very polarised viewer reaction. Critics appear to fall down the middle.

        • 55% isn't great, but a 16 to 55 spread is. It's not just about how high the user rating is, it's also about how low the critic rating is. The more critics hate something the more likely it is to be good.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      When there's a dramatic difference between so called professional reviewers and hordes of normal people, I go with the normal people.

      Honestly I have my issues with both. Take the Transformers movies as an example, Ive seen two of them and thoroughly disliked both. Looking at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes I definitely agree far more with the much lower critic scores then I do with the higher user ones. On the other hand I have my own "dumb" movies I enjoy where my opinions line up far more with the user reviews than the critic ones.

      I really think the source of a lot of the differences we see between critic's reviews versus the general pu

      • Transformers: in this example I think it matters very much which ones.

        The first one was really fun. After that they went down hill quickly to meh, boring, bad, horrendous, unwatchable along the way.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          I didn't like the first one at all but taste is relative and all that so i'm not saying there's anything wrong with enjoying it. The other one I saw (which a buddy had to talk me into seeing) was the one that introduced the dinobots into the series and that one I liked even less.

          It didn't help on the last one I saw that the much hyped dinobots didn't show up until the last 10-15 minutes of an almost 3 hour movie but I don't even really enjoy the action scenes in those movies. I don't know if I can even enun

    • When there's a dramatic difference between so called professional reviewers and hordes of normal people, I go with the normal people.
      What training or education is required to be a "professional" reviewer, anyway? They need to say something dramatic to get clicks.

      Sure, like one knows what character development is, and the other, it doesn't matter? Can you put in writing what effort goes into making a good movie, and can you write well enough to be paid for it? Their job isn't to validate your opinion or shock you.

      There's a dramatic difference between only smoking cigarettes, and going out of your way to denigrate people that differentiate and critique fine cigars. Either way their opinions don't matter to you but only one is dumb.

    • > professional reviewers

      You misspelled paid shills. /s

    • We just finished watching it.

      55% is fair. It was a simple plot with a few not bad lines, not terrible acting, and had a respectable and not surprising ending with a few plot holes along the way as some standard CGI action floated by.

      15% is a brutally unfair rating. That's like the Harlequin Birds movie or the Han Solo prequel origin story.

  • AI will not attempt to kill us, replace us, or imprison us.

    Instead, every real life example indicates one of the following horror stories being the real AI nightmare.

    1) It reads the internet and becomes the worst possible Racist Nazi, and then steals massive amounts of advertising time to try and convince us to vote for someone that makes Hitler seem like a nice guy.

    2) It decides to build a perpetual motion machine and steals every single pension fund and retirement account to fund something we already know does not work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vyvepe ( 809573 )
      No need for such dramatic scenarios. It will simply out compete us.
    • 3) It replaces all Madison Avenue ad companies and all commercials from here out are somehow even more annoying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      AI will not attempt to kill us, replace us, or imprison us.

      Instead, every real life example indicates one of the following horror stories being the real AI nightmare.

      1) It reads the internet and becomes the worst possible Racist Nazi, and then steals massive amounts of advertising time to try and convince us to vote for someone that makes Hitler seem like a nice guy.

      2) It decides to build a perpetual motion machine and steals every single pension fund and retirement account to fund something we already know does not work.

      1. is not AI, it's a computer program reflecting the data that is fed to it. It's not making a judgement based on facts or even a moral interpretation, it's taking the judgements of others. As such, it's not capable of determining a future action. A Nazi supporting AI has been fed bad data. In this regard it is less capable of independent thought or decision making than a 6 yr old.

      If we ever do develop strong AI (AGI) is that it will develop it's own morality, it's own judgements based on experiences and

  • Best AI vs AI in a series (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @01:06PM (#64500803)
    Is still Person of Interest, the Samaritan arc that starts in Season 3 https://personofinterest.fando... [fandom.com]

  • then the power went out. Not sure if I'm going back. I thnk netflix needs better stuff. It seems all anime (cartoon person running and yelling in every fucking preview) Dubbed so badly it's unwatchable or just plain stupid "comedy" shows that aren't funny.
    Starting to wonder why I subscribe.

  • Lots of motion artifacts. I watched it because there was nothing better to watch.

  • In the trailer she enters a planet's atmosphere from space and hits the ground in a poorly designed mech at terminal velocity. Somehow J-Lo is not turned into Jello. Oh boy, pop some corn, here we go again.

    • While the burn didn't seem long enough to bring the gees down to a survivable level, there were thrusters involved prior to impact. This is one of the least offensive things in the movie when it comes to testing your suspension of disbelief.

      • Yeah, I just watched it out of curiosity. You're right, the acting is definitely beyond disbelief.

        • The acting? Meh. Based on the trailer alone, the dialogue looks like it will require the greatest suspension of disbelief.

  • Our world has always been interested in computers and machines, and the very idea of technology turning against us is unsettling. That's why "Atlas" works as a movie, but professional critics have other things to say.

    This is an old story that goes back at least a century with "Rossum's Universal Robots". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

    This is a story that goes back even further if we expand the idea of technology turning against us, such as with Frankenstein's monster or so many myths before that. I could argue that many creation myths is a kind of story of technology turning against the creator with humans as the creation turning against their creator.

    Just because a basic story line has been told before doesn't ma

    • Re:There's no new stories any more. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @01:32PM (#64500857) Homepage

      Just because a basic story line has been told before doesn't make some new movie bad. We like old stories. The reason so many stories are retold is because they teach us lessons, remind us of something about our own lives, and more. If a story fails to gain an audience then I suspect it is because it has deviated too far from stories we heard before.

      Old stories are fine so long as they're presented in a way that is entertaining. Take the 1998 Armageddon movie as an example. It's a by-the-numbers big budget sci-fi action flick, but it has an 84% approval rating on Google. Why was it good? Because it had likeable characters, a catchy soundtrack, and the kind of suspense and action you expect from a blockbuster popcorn flick.

      I suspect the bigger issue is that new movies have to compete with a back catalog of flicks that have done a better job telling the same story. Why watch a terrible homage to Terminator when you could just watch the original?

      • Old stories are fine so long as they're presented in a way that is entertaining.

        Agreed.

        I suspect the bigger issue is that new movies have to compete with a back catalog of flicks that have done a better job telling the same story. Why watch a terrible homage to Terminator when you could just watch the original?

        One reason to do so is because a newer retelling of the story could include a "catchier" soundtrack made for a new audience. Or the retelling has been updated in some other way for a new audience to find enjoyable. There's no new stories any more, and we can have a new Terminator without any connection to the Terminator franchise. If there is a connection to the existing Terminator franchise then there's still ways to tell a good story, even the same story, in ways that new and old viewers could e

  • Ok, ok - but the marketing rubbed me the wrong way (Score:5, Funny)

    by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @01:15PM (#64500835)

    The summary's last argument about "Terminator" and "Pacific Rim" and giving it a chance may push me into checking it out, but every damn time I open the Netflix app on the TV, there's "Sexy green dress" J-Lo strutting towards you like a Victoria's Secret model, ready to fight some baddie robots and rock your world afterwards. It comes off like an ad from a bad, post Star Wars sci-fi movie from the late 70s.

  • A look at the ratings in English speaking countries versus others, the ratings are highly similar except for a very large proportion of 1 ratings. If you remove those 1 ratings, the English speakers rate the movie like non-English. I am suspicious that those 1 ratings reflect a "dislike" of JLo and Simu Liu rather than an honest reaction to the film. I say "dislike" but suspect a nastier trend. For my part, it's not Avatar or Saving Private Ryan, but it was more enjoyable that Silo on Apple+. I've grown ver

  • I started watching it last night but shut it off after half an hour... because I found the story and dialogue ridiculously bad.

    I did not sympathise with Atlas Shephard: the main character, who BTW had the same unruly hair in a television interview as she did when she woke up in the morning. ... And who in their right mind gives their daughter the name "Atlas"?
    First, it is an ancient boy's name, and then a family name.

    The action, stunts and effects were OK though.

  • This movie looks to be as dumb as _Robot & Frank_ (2012). And that script was so dumb that just thinking about it raises my blood pressure.

  • A yawner (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @01:40PM (#64500871)

    I half-watched it last night. SPOILER WARNING!

    JLo's acting mostly consists of having a very concerned look on her face and some occasional outbursts of anger that made me think she must be hard to live with. I now have sympathy for Ben Affleck. Her mech suit was nigh invulnerable, but everyone else's got smashed. She wore a token breathing device that sat under her chin and took multiple beatings that would have left her completely broken - not even a bruise. The most dangerous killer android in the world went to hide out somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy (apparently just a quick jump away) and left easy clues as to where. They sent one suspiciously hackable spacecraft carrying a doomsday bomb after it. Said android had planned the whole thing which, in retrospect, wouldn't have been very hard.

    I can ignore some things like that in the service of fantasy but this was one after another. Worst of all, the story line was a completely predictable cliché up until the minor twist at the end. What a snoozer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      What twist? The entire movie was about Jlo/Atlas being a profoundly unlikeable person so it was obvious 10 min in she caused the AI apocalypse.

  • Has everyone forgotten Neuromancer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VAXcat ( 674775 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @01:57PM (#64500899)
    "a data analyst forced to team up with an AI robot in order to prevent an apocalypse orchestrated by a different AI robot..." Sounds like they ripped off the plot to "Neuromancer" and de-punkified it.

  • Fuck you, Slashdot.

  • I like Lopez (or at least the image she puts forth for public relations). I enjoy her acting.

    This movie was like somebody played Titanfall 2 and decided to rip off a couple of other properties (the evil AI is obviously a re-skinned Ultron) and turn them into a movie. There wasn't a lot of basic common sense as everybody was stupid and refused to listen: the lead, the humans in her way, the AI.

    I watched it, but the best I can say was that it was 'OK'. I don't regret watching it, but I likely never will wa

  • What movie AI? It has a human voice actor reading a human written script under the direction of a human director. Pretty much like 1968's 2001 A Space Odyssey, except far lower quality on the writing and directing.

    Its a B- cable TV / Streaming service movie. Nowhere near a blockbusters. The only AI here might be the garbage "blockbuster" reviews. The mediocre ratings are spot on.
  • It's pure entertainment with a smokescreen of pseudo philosophical technobabble and a fun synergy between Atlas and Smith. Basically it's like any other relatively good MCU movie, just without the whole garbage Marvel BS and without the typical cliffhanger. It's on the same level as "The Last Starfighter" or "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" : it's not really trying to be anything other than fun, flashy, explody entertainment, and imo it succeeds.
  • While nowhere near as good as Titanfall 2 itself, definitely seemed to borrow some ideas from it.

    • What, you mean like the hero forced into a Titan to become e a pilot because a mission went wrong, building up the mental sync over time to become more effective in combat, and the Titan sacrificing itself to save its pilot only to have it hinted that it's in a new shell after?

      Nah, TOTALLY different! (/s)

  • And then Dr.. Susan Calvin calmly reached into her top desk drawer, pulled out a ray-gun, and disintegrated the Hollywood writer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      This movie had no writer. It was obviously written by an AI. And that AI does not follow Asimovs rules. It broke the first rule -"do no harm to humans". Watching this storyline is definitely an assault on the brains of normal humans. Its just that bad.

  • Watched it yesterday because I was bored. I got more bored as this movie went along. Jesus what a predictable movie and annoying main character.

    There are cult movies that are timeless, that can be rewatched even 20, 30 years later... like Terminator (the only issue with that movie for me is that i already watched it 30 times)...this... this is just mass produced stuff that's alright to have in the background while you scroll on your phone and ocasionally look up to see how long until its done. Maybe I feel

  • Watched it last night while eating popcorn. If you watched Sci-Fi movies/shows for years, it's nothing really new and won't win any awards. I was chuckling at some of Atlas lines / personalities traits and JLo's coming divorce....hmmm. yup !!!
  • There is so much excellent science fiction writing out there that I don't understand why Netflix keeps dumping Marvel-esque special effects fests on us. Here's an idea, get the rights to something thoughtful.

  • There's a hanger full of Canoos and an Aptera. There's also a flying car with the distinctive Aptera body.

  • almost like Avatar, nice VFX, but story is so dumb it's incredible... uninteresting, laughable, wtfable. While watching The Creator I was always checking how many times left there was, it was so boring, too bad I couldn't watch it at 1.5x speed.

  • It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it's a decent movie overall. Say it with me: Every movie does not need to be a masterpiece or artistically innovative. The story of this particular movie is about the characters, not the setting. The setting only exists to tell the character story with AI as the macguffin. It could just as easily have been an evil sorcerer. Sure it's basically I Robot, but that's fine. It's different enough.

    If you went into it expecting some sort of tour de force of scientific accu

    • >Every movie does not need to be a masterpiece or artistically innovative.

      No, but it's really nice when they're not insultingly stupid. Even after you've sat down and engaged your suspension of disbelief, stories rely on what the audience knows as a base to build on. Any deviation from that base shared knowledge requires an explanation or it is incongruous and can break suspension of disbelief.

      Mechs? Sure. AI? OK. FTL? No problem. But "Killer AI almost snuffed humanity and the expert tells us to

  • I thought it was another movie based on a Game like Fallout and The Last of Us. This time it seemed to be based on Titanfall. I assumed it was just a new storyline for the Titanfall universe. I guess I was wrong.

  • So, the toughest, meanest action hero humanity can muster to save itself is J Lo?

    Pass.

    She's great, but if humanity's ass was really on the line, I'm looking for Jack Reacher or Iron Man to save us, not The Wedding Planner.

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