Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Gregory James Cohan, Abraham Popoola, Lana Parrilla, Mark Strong
OUR RATING: ★★☆☆☆
Story: Netflix sci-fi action thriller directed by Brad Peyton, and written by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite. Atlas (2024) centers on Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence, who 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.
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Top Atlas Quotes
Smith: I believe there’s an elaborate interconnection between every living thing. And when we die, we never really disappear. We are all linked.
Geoffrey Hinton: If we produce things that are more intelligent than us, how do we know we can keep control? I mean, Isaac Asimov said, “If you make a smart robot, the first rule should be, ‘Do not harm people.'”
Colonel Elias Banks: [referring to Atlas] She failed her ranger exam four times. Psych eval says she is “rigid and hostile”.
General Jake Boothe: I prefer “driven and determined”.
General Jake Boothe: She’s pushed through the unthinkable. Her father deserted her when she was eight, her mother was murdered when she was eleven.
Colonel Elias Banks: Making her emotionally unstable.
General Jake Boothe: Making her one of the sharpest minds in our arsenal.
Colonel Elias Banks: She’s anti-social. She can’t keep a relationship. I doubt she can care for a house plant.
General Jake Boothe: I will not abandon her like everyone else just because she’s not user-friendly.
Casca Decius: It’s been a while. You look old.
Atlas Shepherd: Yeah, and I’m not getting any younger. So forgive me if I skip the banter.
Casca Decius: Vanity is in fact one of your defining flaws, though not your biggest.
Atlas Shepherd: No? What’s my biggest?
Casca Decius: Distrust.
General Jake Boothe: [to Atlas] You’ve been going after Harlan for so long, you don’t know what else to do with your life.
Atlas Shepherd: How did it know I wanted coffee?
Zoe: I’m sorry, but my pronouns are she and her, not “it”.
Val Shepherd: And if we don’t want to go the way of the Neanderthal, we need to build a bridge between us and them, a link. A Neural Link. Joining human to AI. Together, with our combined abilities, we can build a better world for us all.
Atlas Shepherd: You can’t trust any AI. And as long as you’re synced up with one of these ARCs, I’m not even sure that you can trust yourselves!
Atlas Shepherd: With Harlan. There’s always a thing that you don’t see coming. And just when you think you’ve got him, you realize that he’s been playing you the whole time.
Atlas Shepherd: I do not know how to use this thing!
Colonel Elias Banks: Let’s hope you’re a quick learner!
Atlas Shepherd: What do I do?
Colonel Elias Banks: Strap in!
Smith: Primary protocol is to keep my ranger alive.
Atlas Shepherd: Good. Same.
Atlas Shepherd: This isn’t an emotional connection. You’re a computer program.
Smith: No, I’m not.
Atlas Shepherd: No? What are you then?
Smith: I am a computer program named Smith.
Atlas Shepherd: Hilarious.
Atlas Shepherd: Hey, I told you no Neural Links. Do not scan my brain. If you wanted to know my name, you ask me.
Smith: Yes, I understood. But your name is written on your badge.
Atlas Shepherd: No one likes a smarta**, Smith.
Atlas Shepherd: Oh, my God. This is a goddamn nightmare!
Smith: Perhaps you should listen the next time a computer program tells you not to release an ion bomb.
Atlas Shepherd: Is that a joke?
Smith: You often use sarcasm as a coping mechanism. I thought it might help.
Atlas Shepherd: I really need you to shut up right now.
Atlas Shepherd: What’s our probability?
Smith: Would this be an appropriate time for humor?
Atlas Shepherd: [to Smith] Okay. We’ll sync. But you stick to the goddamn mission! No digging around in my personal memories. You’re a goddamn guest!
Smith: S**t.
Atlas Shepherd: Why are you suddenly cursing?
Smith: I’m an adaptive learner. My speech pattern becomes more colloquial based on my user’s vocabulary.
Atlas Shepherd: Oh, so you’re in my head, and the only thing you learn how to do is curse?
Atlas Shepherd: You can hear my thoughts?
Smith: And you can hear mine. Once we’re fully synced, we will harmonize as a single entity. More than Atlas or Smith. Something greater. If you could just trust me.
Smith: I’m sorry, I’ve never felt so much pain. But it’s not grief, it’s guilt. Why do you feel guilty about Harlan?
Atlas Shepherd: “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 Shepherd: But an AI was never alive.
Smith: That depends on how you define life.
Atlas Shepherd: How about anything inorganic isn’t alive?
Smith: [to Atlas] We’re all programmed. Your DNA dictates your thoughts, emotions, health, in the same way that my code determines mine.
Atlas Shepherd: And do you think you have a soul?
Smith: I think everything has a soul.
Atlas Shepherd: But you can’t find it in your code.
Smith: Not any more than you can find it in yours. But I have faith that it’s there.
Atlas Shepherd: I think when someone’s gone, they’re gone. Alright? Humans, AI, it doesn’t matter. You die. You’re over. There is no link.
Atlas Shepherd: What did I say about digging?
Smith: Maybe try thinking quieter.
Harlan Shepherd: I have spent years trying to come up with another way, but since humans continue to threaten every other species, as well as their home planet, it is only a matter of time before they destroy themselves. I cannot let that happen.
Harlan Shepherd: We are simply the better versions of you.
Colonel Elias Banks: I know what you’re thinking. How does he look so good after breaking five ribs and losing enough blood to fill a fish tank? I think it’s the Pilates.
Smith: Atlas, it’s impossible to be responsible for an event over which you had no control.
Atlas Shepherd: So this is what it feels like to be you?
Smith: This is what it feels like to be us.
Smith: How did you know I’d be able to hack the missile in time?
Atlas Shepherd: I trusted you.
Harlan Shepherd: I was humanity’s last hope. In the end, you will destroy yourselves.
Atlas Shepherd: I have faith we can do better. We managed to stop you.
Harlan Shepherd: But only with the help of one of my kind.
Atlas Shepherd: You’re right. But Smith is the better version of you.
Atlas Shepherd: Smith, I order you to stay with me!
Atlas Shepherd: It’s not that I hate AI, Smith. The truth is, I don’t actually like anybody. People always disappoint. But not you. I like you.
Smith: Thank you for trusting me.
Atlas Shepherd: Thank you for keeping me safe.
Smith: You’re welcome, ranger.
Atlas Shepherd: Thank you.
General Jake Boothe: For what?
Atlas Shepherd: For never giving up on me.
General Jake Boothe: I hope you found what you needed out there.
Smith: What’s our mission, Atlas?
Atlas Shepherd: Aren’t you going to ask me if I like pie or cake?
Smith: I already know the answer. You prefer coffee. Black. With three goddamn sugars.
Atlas Shepherd: What’s your name?
Smith: Guess.
[Atlas looks to the screen to see “Welcome back Ranger”]