Who doesn't love giant mechs?
I've largely fallen out of the habit of watching movie trailers. I think my time out of a newsroom and being away from the daily grind of the entertainment news cycle has cured me of some of that impulse to immediately go into writing mode when I see news of one.
Or at least somewhat: Netflix released a trailer for an upcoming film, Atlas, directed by Brad Payton (San Andreas, Rampage, Sweet Girl), and it's the type of film that I'm perfectly tailored to enjoy. Here's the trailer:
The story sounds pretty interesting. Announced way back in 2021, it follows a government analyst named Atlas Shepherd (played by Jennifer Lopez), who's tasked with heading off to a dangerous planet to capture a rogue artificial intelligence that she has some prior connection to, and then has to learn to trust in order to survive. It also stars Simu Liu (Shang-Chi) and Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), which is promising.
Will it be good? Who can say? Netflix has a mixed track record when it comes to original films, but as I wrote back when it was announced, while it sounds like a generic human vs. AI story, the script landed on the vaunted Black List in 2017, which is a good sign.
And even if it isn't – it feels like it could fit alongside films like Battle: LA or Edge of Tomorrow, which are perfectly fine military SF action films. And, y'know: giant mechs. I get some neat Titanfall vibes from this, and it's making me think that I should dust off the draft that I've got of a mech story (written for an anthology eons ago that I never ended up finishing) and take another swing at it.