As the streaming wars get more heated, the formula is becoming familiar for movies on Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Max, Prime and the rest:
Hire a bankable star (Nicole Kidman, Sandra Block, Matt Damon, Kristin Wiig, etc), surround them with action, upscale locales and/or special effects, and sometimes have a decent two-hour story.
The latest example: ATLAS, a sci-fi action film on Netflix starring Jennifer Lopez. Among the producers are Belanti and Schechter, the creatives behind the now moribund DCU at the CW (Flash, etc).
Beyond her soap opera love life and musical career, Lopez has starred in numerous films, dating all the way back to the 1995 thriller THE NET, one of the first, if not the first, films about the 'Internet.' She knows how to act, from comedy to in this case, flat-out action.
It pays off in ATLAS, which despite some predictable and cheap-looking special effects, and a very clunky beginning about the dangers of AI, if you stay with it turns into a very effective tour de force of Lopez' acting skills. For a good hour, she channels Ripley as Lopez tries to work inside a sassy AI battlebot. She goes through every emotion, and her face (they had faces then), is so striking that it is sometimes mesmerizing just to watch her.
I enjoyed it a lot, even if in the end it is a minor entertainment.
david
'Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still Jenny, Jenny from the block.'
Hire a bankable star (Nicole Kidman, Sandra Block, Matt Damon, Kristin Wiig, etc), surround them with action, upscale locales and/or special effects, and sometimes have a decent two-hour story.
The latest example: ATLAS, a sci-fi action film on Netflix starring Jennifer Lopez. Among the producers are Belanti and Schechter, the creatives behind the now moribund DCU at the CW (Flash, etc).
Beyond her soap opera love life and musical career, Lopez has starred in numerous films, dating all the way back to the 1995 thriller THE NET, one of the first, if not the first, films about the 'Internet.' She knows how to act, from comedy to in this case, flat-out action.
It pays off in ATLAS, which despite some predictable and cheap-looking special effects, and a very clunky beginning about the dangers of AI, if you stay with it turns into a very effective tour de force of Lopez' acting skills. For a good hour, she channels Ripley as Lopez tries to work inside a sassy AI battlebot. She goes through every emotion, and her face (they had faces then), is so striking that it is sometimes mesmerizing just to watch her.
I enjoyed it a lot, even if in the end it is a minor entertainment.
david
'Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still Jenny, Jenny from the block.'
statistics: Posted by taraco — 5:29 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 0 — Views 160