When it comes to the handful of names who are defiantly keeping the idea of super-stardom alive, Jennifer Lopez is near the top of the list as a multi-hyphenate entertainment royalty. Just take a look at some of the projects she\u2019s steered in the last few years as a producer, actor, and singer, and the picture of her cultural reach snaps into place across genres and mediums: 2019\u2019s heist flick \u201cHustlers,\u201d rom-coms \u201cMarry Me\u201d and \u201cShotgun Wedding\u201d (2022), the intimate action-thriller \u201cThe Mother\u201d (2023), a self-funded project about her life journey titled \u201cThis is Me \u2026 Now\u201d (2024) and a Superbowl halftime show appearance in 2020, among others. It\u2019s almost as if Lopez boldly declares at every turn that she\u2019s the whole package,\u00a0while the rest of the world complains about the kinds of movies we don\u2019t get anymore, or the stars they don\u2019t make like they used to.<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s hard to argue against the fact that J.Lo is indeed<\/em> the whole package, with a uniquely magnetic presence always welcome on any screen of any size, even when the quality of the project that she headlines leaves a lot to be desired (as is the case with some of the aforementioned outings). Her latest endeavor, Brad Peyton\u2019s cheesy, Artificial Intelligence-centric sci-fi \u201cAtlas\u201d is no exception. This lackluster streaming flick that will never see its day on a big theater screen is hardly a \u201cMinority Report,\u201d \u201cI, Robot\u201d or \u201cGravity\u201d\u2014just a few of the movies that co-writers Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite seemed to have had in mind in developing their story. But look beyond the dreary CGI and some clumsy set-pieces, and it has Lopez all the same, muscular and fiery, game for any cheesy line \u201cAtlas\u201d gleefully throws her way.<\/p>\n It sometimes feels like those cheesy lines are the film\u2019s second greatest asset (after, of course, Lopez). Which is why the film\u2019s straight-to-streaming release feels especially unfortunate\u2014aren\u2019t knowingly hokey rulings like \u201cEat Shit!\u201d from the lips of the recent Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown (\u201cAmerican Fiction\u201d) before he blows up an entire AI-ruled settlement and \u201cLet\u2019s go, bitch!\u201d delivered by Lopez herself best enjoyed among a rowdy crowd? But you\u2019ll have to settle with the pleasure of your own company instead of following the brilliant data analyst Atlas Shepherd (Lopez), first across the cartoonishly rendered Los Angeles of the distant future and, later, outer space. It\u2019s a time when AI is dominant but regulated by a special unit. And a renegade robot\u2014Simu Liu\u2019s Harlan, with a pair of distracting blue contact lenses\u2014who fled planet Earth 28 years ago is still feared. What if he returns with an army, and the wrong kind of AI takes over the world?<\/p>\n Like Will Smith\u2019s Del in \u201cI, Robot,\u201d Atlas here is full of hatred against AI, with a strong preference for things that are traditional and analog. But when a recent mission sends her to an unstable and inhospitable planet called GR39 under Colonel Elias Banks\u2019 (K. Brown) leadership, she has no choice but to trust the very robotic powers she detests. Especially after she loses her entire team during the mission and gets stuck in a mech suit controlled by Simon, the AI persona from whom she needs help. But can the ever-cynical and sarcastic Atlas learn to trust Simon and allow it to synch up with her brain completely?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it comes to the handful of names who are defiantly keeping the idea of super-stardom alive, Jennifer Lopez is near the top of the list as a multi-hyphenate entertainment royalty. Just take a look at some of the projects she\u2019s steered in the last few years as a producer, actor, and singer, and the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36,46,51],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","tag-action","tag-netflix","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}