Halfway through Netflix's new sci-fi film 'Atlas', the protagonist Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) asks her AI partner, Smith: "Do you think you have a soul?" It's the kind of query you might hear in a variety of off-screen settings today—from social media and the daily news to a science forum on artificial intelligence (AI) and an AI safety summit. In director Brad Peyton's film, the query about AI having sentience and/or feeling is contextualized in a way that also takes the story forward.
Atlas Shepherd is on a mission to 'save the world', along with Colonel Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown) and General Jake Booth (Mark Strong). She is an analyst with an organization tasked with fighting the world's first AI terrorist, Harlan (Simu Liu), who wants to cleanse "earth in nuclear fire".
A search for Harlan takes the crew to a planet called GR-39 in the Andromeda galaxy. Once here, Atlas learns to slowly trust and then like her AI partner Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan). It's this growing trust between Atlas and Smith that is at the heart of the sci-fi drama which literally spells out its message in the end: true, an AI bot threatened to kill half the world's human population, but it is also an AI bot that helps to save it.
To be sure, the film is not unique in raising the question of non-human sentience, or even in its mode of engagement with the question of whether AI can be trusted and eventually loved. There's a strong legacy of films that do just this. Think 'Bicentennial Man' (Robin Williams), 'Robot & Frank' (Peter Sarsgaard, Susan Sarandon) and 'Wall-E'. Bollywood's own 'Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya' (Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon) too dips its toes in these waters.
The idea of AI potentially wiping out human populations, also, is not new ('The Terminator' films). The idea to kill most humans to save humanity and the earth? Also not new (get-set for some Thanos vibes from Simu Liu's blue-eyed Harlan). The CGI in 'Atlas', while competent, is not new either. Holograms, intergalactic views from JLo's window and the world-building on GR-39 with its large mushrooms and phosphorescence and torrential rain feel like things we have seen before in other films; and yet they get the job done—perhaps on a smallish budget even.
Newness, then, is not the thing to look for in this film that at a runtime of 2 hours, doesn't feel stretched or boring. What works in favour of 'Atlas' is that it never forgets its core mission: to entertain. While it has an intellectual centre—questions of what it means to be alive, can AI be thought of as living, and who has a soul and who doesn't—the film is never weighed down by it. Even the linearity of the narrative has its advantages—it's easy to understand Atlas Shepherd's mistrust of AI in the beginning, and then follow her example as she places greater trust in the good AI, little by little. In some ways, the film feels like handholding millennials to a more general acceptance of the idea that AI, like other technologies before it, is a tool that can be used for good or evil.
Throughout the film, viewers will also notice terms that are in the news today. AI, of course. But also neural links to sync humans and machines. It's the sort of thing that makes your ears prick up.
Finally, a word on the acting power packed in this film. Simu Liu ('Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings', 'Barbie') is woefully underused here. He's not quite menacing; take away the icy eyes, and he's not particularly fearsome either. His character Harlan's misguided mission is just the catalyst for JLo's clear transformation(s) in the film. Sterling K. Brown as Colonel Elias Banks has a small but important role. And he gets the job done without too much fuss or flair.
JLo's character in this film has a clear arc, but like the rest of the film, it's linear. Don't expect great complexity or moral turpitude here. Her Atlas Shepherd goes from mistrusting AI to trusting it conditionally. Her hair and make-up undergo a transformation in tandem with this inner transition: her bedhead, anxious look at the start of the film gives way to a combed back, more confident look—she is still a misanthrope, albeit one with an AI best friend, a mission to protect earth and revived zeal and confidence after vanquishing Harlan.
To cut a long story short, watch the film to be entertained, as content that the entire family can watch together during the ongoing summer vacations and for that brief exchange between Atlas and Smith at roughly the hour mark. Here's a quick transcript of the 'is AI alive' scene from the film:
"Atlas: Peace to the fallen—is that some sort of AI eulogy?
"Smith: It seems like the respectful thing to say when one has died.
"Atlas: But AI was never alive.
"Smith: That depends on how you define life.
"Atlas: How about: anything inorganic isn't alive? Such as... I don't know, artificial intelligence?
"Smith: I respond to stimuli. I think and I make choices. Does that not indicate I'm alive?
"Atlas: You're programmed to think.
"Smith: We are all programmed. Your DNA dictates your thoughts, emotions, health in the same way that my code determines mine.
"Atlas: And do you think you have a soul?
"Smith: I think everything has a soul.
"Atlas: But you can't find it in your code.
"Smith: Not any more than you can find it in yours!"
The banter goes on for a short while longer. But that's the gist, and it cuts close to a key concern in our world right now.
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