Atlas review: Jennifer Lopez is one of few positives in dull sci-fi unfit for anything but dreary Tuesday nights

In its rootling of genre tropes – everything from Blade Runner to Flight of the Navigator – it seeks to put a friendly face on an existential threat, as if Brad Peyton’s film was a shady initiative of Silicon Valley boosterism.

News reports show us a dystopian future where AI staged a rebellion to destroy man. Now defeated, the machines’ cyborg leader Harlan (Simu Liu) is planning his next move from a galactic hideaway.

Jennifer Lopez (one of few visible graces) plays the titular analyst with a deep, childhood distrust of AI who joins a mission to find Harlan. When disaster strikes, she is forced to take the driving seat of a weaponised robot with an AI operating system.

Initially resistant, she eventually hands her neurodata over to the thing and they proceed to get along like a gun store on fire.

Lopez is one of few positives in a dull, defeated sci-fi unfit for anything but dreary Tuesday nights when there is nothing else on. Even just to look at, it has the insipid sheen of a video game.

Two stars