Main cast: Jennifer Lopez (Atlas Shepherd), Simu Liu (Harlan), Sterling K Brown (Colonel Elias Banks), Gregory James Cohan (Smith), Abraham Popoola (Casca Decius), Lana Parrilla (Val Shepherd), and Mark Strong (General Jake Boothe)
Director: Brad Peyton

It’s probably not a good time to release Atlas, as poor Jennifer Lopez is facing a hailstorm of hilariously embarrassing publicity boo-boos. Clearly not possessing adequate levels of intelligence, the poor darling believes that releasing two movies celebrating a doomed marriage won’t be seen as a height of narcissism, and releasing an album that nobody cares about and announcing a world tour that doesn’t sell are only cream on the humiliation fondue. 

Still, this one is about big giant mechs, so how bad can it be?

Anyway, in this one, the AIs have revolted, led by the bot Harlan. He has ties with our heroine, Atlas Shepherd, in that her mom created Harlan to help make human lives cozier and easier, but for some reason, the bot doesn’t take too well to his role and leads a destructive AI rampage across the world.

Eventually, after about 28 years, the International Coalition of Nations manage to drive Harlan into hiding somewhere in the vast outer space. 

Today, the grown-up Atlas is a counter-terrorism analyst, and when the ICN discovers that Harlan may be somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy, she joins a gang of heroes to pursue that thing…

Well, except that once the chase is on, the plot bends over backward to ensure that everyone else either dies or decides to die so that Atlas can live. 

I suppose one can argue that an analyst is more important than grunt soldiers because she is Jennifer Lopez, but these people could have made that character’s plot armor or “You! That’s right! Go sacrifice yourself so that I am the final girl!” contrivances less obvious. This is especially so when I take into account Atlas’s role in starting the whole AI war mess. 

Aside from that, the show is a formulaic and very generic movie. Sure, it has its moments, but those moments are pretty predictable because they are just rehashed tropes that I have come across them many times already in other movies.

Also, the movie certainly has a rather mid-budget look to it—don’t expect too many thrilling explosions or big mech fights because if you do, you are better off watching Pacific Rim or something else—and therefore, there aren’t many flashy lights and sounds to distract me from the fact that this thing is indeed mid in every other way.

So yes, in the end, this one is alright in a most generic “take it or leave it, doesn’t matter” way; if this Atlas shrugged, it’s due to how rather meh and forgettable the whole thing is.

Nonetheless, it’s the peak moment in Ms Lopez’s current comeback era, so there’s that!