Atlas
Netflix will occasionally throw lots of money at huge action blockbusters, despite no theatrical release planned. Sometimes that works out. Movies like Red Notice and Heart of Stone have done exceedingly well in terms of viewership. But critics? They’re usually not fans. And in the case of Atlas, Netflix’s new blockbuster out today, oh boy.
Atlas is currently reviewing at an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, identical to a movie that was topping Netflix’s charts last week, Madame Web, also at an 11% and widely considered possibly the worst superhero movie ever made. They also share a close to identical audience scores, with Atlas 2% higher currently, 59% to 57%
In Atlas, Jennifer Lopez plays a data analyst who takes on a rogue AI played by Simu Liu in a movie that looks oddly like a variation on the video game Titanfall. The film reportedly cost $100 million to make, supposedly the most ever for a female-led Netflix original film, but the results are poor. Like, even for a Netflix original, poor. Here’s how Atlas stacks up against some of Netflix’s other high profile action movies, a few of which are great, many of which are…not.
- Leave the World Behind – 73%
- The Adam Project – 68%
- Extraction – 67%
- Bird Box – 65%
- The Gray Man – 45%
- Red Notice – 37%
- Heart of Stone – 30%
- Bright – 26%
- Rebel Moon Part 1- 21%
- Rebel Moon Part 2 – 15%
- Atlas – 11%
It’s possible the score goes up (or down) as more reviews come in, but this is very clearly a misfire for Netflix. Again, all they care about is viewership really, not ratings, as if something is terrible but widely watched, that’s fine (Red Notice had very high audience scores, for instance). But if word of mouth is poor, that can limit reach.
Red Notice
Netflix has been a bit odd about the fate of its blockbusters. They greenlit both Red Notice and Gray Man sequels, but we have not heard about either of those in years, though they are supposedly still in development.
What went wrong with Atlas? I don’t know. The trailers did not look good, as JLo felt very out of place in the role almost immediately. I can’t say I’m going to watch it because I just don’t have two hours of my day to devote to a movie this bad that isn’t Madame Web, which was in “so bad it’s good” territory. Maybe Atlas is too, I don’t know.
In any case, something went deeply wrong here, and despite greenlighting of other sub-par blockbusters, I don’t see this one getting a sequel, based on what we can see already.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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