J-Lo Battles the Robots in Netflix Film ‘Atlas’

Jennifer Lopez in Atlas
Jennifer Lopez in ‘Atlas (Image credit: Netflix)

Film Atlas, with Jennifer Lopez as a data analyst on a mission to capture a renegade robot, premieres on Netflix May 24. Brad Peyton directs. 

Lopez is Atlas Shepherd, “a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence,” according to Netflix, who joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with whom she shares a mysterious past. Her plans go awry, and her only hope of saving the future of humanity from AI is to trust it.

Lopez is a producer as well, as are Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schecter. Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite wrote the screenplay. 

Simu Liu and Sterling K. Brown are also in the cast. 

Lopez told Netflix’s Tudum: “I loved that this is a big sci-fi action movie, but at its core, it’s a story of friendship — and a love story, in a way. I always see everything as a love story, but this is a different kind of love between two beings who connect in disastrous circumstances, and teach each other how to be more human.”

Reviews are not so hot. One in The Guardian said, “Jennifer Lopez learns to love AI in silly Netflix mockbuster.”

USA Today wrote, “Jenny from the Block is in her Iron Man era with Atlas, a sci-fi action thriller directed by Brad Peyton that pairs two hot commodities: a pop-culture superstar and artificial intelligence.”

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the L.A. Times and New York magazine.