" Atlas Shrugged " the movie

[Leonid]

After 10 months of great expectation I finally saw " Atlas Shrugged" part I. It was abysmal! The movie doesn't make justice to the book, the Ayn Rand's masterpiece deserves much better treatment. All actors and actresses are out of character, especially Dagny Taggart. While in the book she's burning with passion, the anemic Dagny in the movie doesn't have enough passion to build card house, let alone a railroad. Henry Rearden is even worse. Ayn Rand philosophy in the movie cannot be seen anywhere, expect, maybe, one Rearden's line " I work for a profit", which he says as like as he's apologizing. If I were John Aglioloro, the movie producer and screenplay writer, I'd buy all existent DVD copies and burn them in my backyard.

[Вениамин]

It was bad. I know I'll end up watching parts II and III, but that is mostly out of a compulsion to finish series of things than anything else.

[Superman123]

An epic like Atlas Shrugged would be hard to put into film format. It would have been better to have produced a series. Some series today are exceptional and far better than most of the movies appearing on screen today.

[John Link]

I enjoyed the film despite the fact that I think it was poorly done. For anyone who had not read the book I expect it would make no sense at all, and for anyone who had read the book I expect it would be a disappointment. Here's a link to an extensive review that I consider to be right on the mark:

The One Thing That Would Have Made ‘Atlas Shrugged’ A Far Better Film | Film School Rejects

[Leonid]

An epic like Atlas Shrugged would be hard to put into film format. It would have been better to have produced a series. Some series today are exceptional and far better than most of the movies appearing on screen today.

This is not even a question of format. The acting, setting, cast, screenplay is bad.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Leonid

[zombieChan]

I didn't think Hank Rearden was all that bad. They picked a great actor for him.

Overall I think the Atlas Shrugged Movie was decent, could of been much better. I agree with Superman, it would of been much better as a series.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Hey, where's the spoiler code? Anyhow... SPOILERS below.

I could certainly think of a number of things to improve. Some of them could even be rectified by some clever scriptwriting in the second part. There were a couple of places where characterization was done glaringly and flatly wrong. Dagny trying to bribe d'Anconia with sex was the worst of these. Though I think they had d'Anconia react properly to the offer. (In other words, if the "real" Dagny had done this, d'Anconia would have behaved exactly as shown.)

A lot of the issues come down to the fact that a lot of things said in the book just can't be done the same way in a visual medium. A lot of AS the book is looking into the thoughts of the characters, and that's difficult (at best) to do in a visual medium. This is why, in large part I was willing to forgive strikers (Akston and d'Anconia) looking slovenly in the movie when they are not portrayed as such in the book.

But I felt emotional impacts from the film, and many people found the movie followable even not having read the book, so I consider claims that the movie is confusing without the book to be overwrought. Clearly a lot was left unsaid in the movie, and so we, having read the book, miss the absence of those things--but that doesn't make the movie, standing by itself, incoherent necessarily.. Others, far more importantly, wanted to read the book due to what they saw in the movie, and that is the biggest good that can come out of it.

To sum up: Yeah, a lot could be improved. Complete piece of trash? Hardly!

Edited February 2, 2012 by Steve D'Ippolito

[softwareNerd]

I just noticed that the movie is now on Netflix.