Atlas (2024)

 

Streaming Service: Netflix

Movie Name/Year: Atlas (2024)

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

Length: 1h 58min

Rating: PG-13

Director: Brad Peyton

Writers: Leo Sardarian, Aron Eli Coleite

Actors: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Gregory James Cohan, Abraham Popoola, Lana Parrilla, Mark Strong, Briella Guiza, Adia Smith-Eriksson, Logan Hunt, Jared Shimabukuro, Ashley J. Hicks, Paul Ganus, Zoe Boyle

 

Metacritic Blurb: Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence, joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with whom she shares a mysterious past. But when plans go awry, her only hope of saving the future of humanity from AI is to trust it.

 

 

Cat’s Point of View:

Atlas was my #3 pick on May's Top 20 list. Needless to say, I've been eagerly anticipating its release. My daughter and I woke up and watched this movie right away while enjoying some waffles. We both had a blast taking in all of the explosive sci-fi action, connecting with the emotions of the main character, and giggling with the moments of levity sprinkled throughout.

 

This Netflix original packed quite the emotional punch while still delivering a solid sci-fi glimpse at a possible future. Atlas painted a picture of a different version of an A.I. uprising than the likes of The Terminator (1984) and the wrath of Skynet.

 

 

Atlas took us on quite the emotional rollercoaster ride, yet it still felt reasonably balanced between action and the personal story. The humor was most appreciated in breaking some of the tension, and felt natural to the story rather than forced jokes. Even in the face of crisis, sometimes you just have to shake your head and chuckle at some things. That was a sentiment I certainly related to.

 

While I was preparing for this review, I stumbled upon an article by chance – it flashed a headline on my phone from a news app, actually. It was describing what seems to be the current critic consensus regarding Atlas. It pissed me off a little.

 

Atlas wasn't meant to be a drama doing a hard-dive into the existential crisis that A.I. presents. Nor was it in need of excessive exposition or B-roll scenes explaining how newer A.I. assistants integrated into a post-Harlan and A.I.-terrorist world. That would have amounted to essentially time-wasting filler.

 

 

Atlas set up its world-building on a more subtle level where it required a little reading between the lines. The audience got a cross-section glimpse of the A.I. integrated world, and, really, that's all that was needed. The core focus of the plot was how a brilliant woman had to come to terms with a life-long repressed heartbreaking trauma, anxiety, and panic attacks in order to learn how to let go and trust again. Trial-by-fire therapy in a distant world combat scenario – with a heavy focus on combat.

 

We didn't need in-depth character development on any other character than the titular one. This wasn't meant to be something like The Avengers (2012) where every character had an amazing back-story and whole movies dedicated to their growth. While I would have liked to learn more about the relationship between General Boothe, played by Mark Strong (Kingsmen: The Secret Service, 1917, Nocebo), and Jennifer Lopez's (Hustlers, Marry Me, The Mother) Atlas, we were presented with what we needed to know during the course of the film. Sterling K. Brown's (The Rhythm Section, This Is Us, American Fiction) character, Colonel Banks, did have a small arc of growth also – as much as the pacing of the plot allowed.

 

 

Were there some “hammy” moments? Sure. Were there common tropes involved with the plot of Atlas? I agree there, too. Here's the thing, though. It worked. There was something familiar and comfortable underneath what would otherwise be a rather scary concept that fills most people with existential dread. A.I. is the source of debate, trepidation, and litigation these days – but it is also a wonder that, if handled responsibly, could elevate our world. I found hope in the center of Atlas' story through most of what they didn't spell out on-screen.

 

If you're a lover of sci-fi and action, I would ask that you but give Atlas a chance and decide for yourself how you feel about it. I, for one, would enjoy watching it again.

 

 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 16%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score –56%

Metascore – 38%

Metacritic User Score – 5.3/10

IMDB Score – 5.6/10

 

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 4/5

 

Movie Trailer:

Project Dorothy (2024)

Movie Name/Year: Project Dorothy (2024)
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Length: 80 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Director: George Henry Horton
Writer: George Henry Horton, Ryan Scaringe
Actors: Danielle Harris, Tim SeZarn, Adam Budron, Olivia Scott
 
Blurb from IMDb: After a botched robbery, two men take refuge in a remote and lifeless scientific facility, inadvertently awakening a monster within.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
I was really into the trailer for Project Dorothy. There’s so much going on with artificial intelligence these days that new movies based on the worst of it make sense to me. I settled in to watch it with hope in my heart.
 
Although the acting of the two main characters was decent, and the concept of Project Dorothy was great, the execution left much to be desired.
 
I hated the way the AI, Dorothy, was portrayed. I don’t know if it was an issue with the writing or Danielle Harris’ (Roadkill, Creepshow, Inoperable) acting, but there was a disconnect somewhere.
 

Part of what makes movies like this scary is just how inhuman artificial intelligence is. Despite sounding, or even looking, human, it can’t be reasoned with or threatened – there are no emotions to appeal to. It’s the uncanny valley. In Project Dorothy, the portrayal of Dorothy is just too human. She laughs, she has normal inflection in her tone, she even gets scared. It broke any tension the very slow first half of the film created. I would have bought it if the twist was that she was just some psychopath behind a curtain pretending to be AI. Might have even made it interesting.
 
I can’t recommend Project Dorothy; it completely missed the point of its own sub-genre.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 96%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – None
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: PG-13
 
Movie Trailer:

The SAG-AFTRA and WGA Strikes Are OVER!

The SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes are officially over as of Thursday, Nov. 9 (though the WGA was able to end there’s earlier). I can’t tell you just how excited we here at Trust the Dice are to get back to our regularly scheduled reviews and streams – though we may be altering the latter just a bit (we’ll discuss that at a later date).
 
Let’s talk about the strikes, for just a moment longer.
 
It only occurred to me recently that the biggest sticking point for actors and writers wasn’t common knowledge. People thought it just boiled down to royalties. While that was an issue, it was not the biggest among them. In fact, I’d say it was the least important issue they were fighting for overall. There were issues they fought for that affect everyone, even those not in Hollywood.
 
The easiest agreements that fell among the most important of them, involved things like sexual harassment prevention, young actors continuing schooling, and closer monitoring of animal actors to protect everyone on set. There were agreements on those issues made all the way back in July.
 
Then there were issues of inclusion. It came out during the strike that, often, services on sets were only provided for white actors. Things like hair and makeup were rarely provided for other races. I’ve heard a lot of arguments about how the big actors should be able to take on that kind of fee, but even if they could, that kind of exclusion is objectively wrong. For that kind of racism to prevail in this day, is ridiculous. The fact that the AMPTP argued with altering it, for any length of time, is disgusting.
 
Finally, there was one sticking point that made it so that no writer or actor could even think of going back to work without resolving. It’s an item that could have set a Black Mirror-esk precedent for all of us. That issue was artificial intelligence.
 
The AMPTP refused to give an inch during the strikes on anything AI related, but it was such an important issue that no creative would dare think of ending negotiations without resolving it.
 
Writers were fighting for AI to be unusable for writing, or rewriting, their material. This means they were fighting for the right to their own work. The way AI works, any script written by it would be a Frankenstein of other writers’ projects. Any writing used to train AI would be up for grabs in those projects and would have led to rampant plagiarism. The hard work writers created could have been taken and used to form other creations without any compensation or credit.
 
As a writer, I’m glad the guild stuck it out and gave no inch where AI was concerned.
 
Yet, I feel like what actors were fighting for was even more important.
 
The studios wanted to be able to take a scan of actors, pay them a (very low) one-time fee and use their likeness in perpetuity – even after their death. In fact, on some projects they had already begun doing so. There are reports of background actors having been scanned, and then told afterwards that the scans would be used to make digital copies of them for future work. Work they would have no credit or pay for.
 
How many cameras are placed all around us these days? Traffic cameras, doorbell cameras, phones… there’s no doubt that each one of us appears on video many times every single day. Now, the SAG/AFTRA deal doesn’t affect laws, but it does offer precedent as to what people will tolerate. If the actors had quit before securing the right to their own images, it would have told politicians that the line for AI use was hazier than they thought.
 
Given the chance to use the likeness of citizens for free, who knows what could have happened.
 
If you’re one of the people out there who thought these strikes were just about making the rich richer, I hope you don’t think that anymore. I hope you see how important these strikes were to all of us.
 
Congrats to the WGA and SAG/AFTRA on their new contracts! I’m so very excited to get back to promoting your films.