I just watched this yesterday, and boy sci-fi has come back with a vengeance. This one has me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. I loved every minute of it. Atlas will explore a whole range of concepts from complete genocide to human empathy; it's quite an awesome film.
This one isn't your normal AI takes over the world movie though, no, it explores the connection between humans and AI in the future in far more context. How far AI can go wrong, taking humanity to the brink of extinction, but also how amazing it can become. I feel it really balances between both topics quite well.
We start of the film with a pretext of how one AI (Harlan Shepherd) went rogue after removing his safety protocols and wanted to take humanity to the brink of extinction and he nearly succeeded. However humanity fought back and were winning the war before the rogue AI left earth and disappeared with a promise to be back to finish what he started. Humanity have been searching for him and clues ever since.
That's when Harlan's second in command shows up randomly in some kind of warehouse and could be a clue to where Harlan may have been hiding for 28 years. He's strong capable, and can kill men in their hundreds. Thankfully everyone was prepared and they captured him.
This is when we meet Atlas, a sincerely intelligent young lady who bears the brunt of having the mother that created Harlan, and also the horror of watching him kill her. If anyone wants to see him dead then it's Atlas. So, she extracts the information from his second in charge and figures out where he's been living for the past 28 years. They want to find him and null the threat to humanity.
The planet they plan to make a journey to is in the Andromeda Galaxy and it's an extremely inhospitable planet with electric storms and all sorts of hell fire, not to mention the unbreathable atmosphere.
That's when Atlas is met with a mech suit. She was forced into an AI based suit that helps rangers in planets that are inhospitable, and, she needs to pair with the AI to make it fully synchronised with her actions.
But there's just one problem. She doesn't trust ai, not to even make her a cup of coffee. She will not, even under pain of death pair bond with an AI and let it into her inner most thoughts because of what she experienced as a child. Her mother after all created the monster that nearly obliterated humanity.
You might think this is an action film, and whilst it has quite a lot of action in it, there's a lot of deep layered analysing of who Atlas is, and her battle with the face that her family was part of the downfall of millions of deaths. And it's quite amazing to watch a harmless AI trying to get her to open up, to "let him in" so to speak. It's quite beautiful. I enjoyed her struggle with her demons way more than the fighting and the other stuff.
I must admit, I saw J-LO and I was like, this film is going to be utter trash, but it wasn't, and I liked it. I think you will too if you watch it.
Posted using CineTV