david-58-631842 The film gives the impression that it's written by someone who's never been exposed to but always fantasised about class. It's then acted out in a spree of self-marginalising desperation of contrived spite for all humanity as an attempt to appeal to those who like to imagine themselves unrewarded heroes and yet-proclaimed masters of society by embracing such a caricature ideology... well, perhaps after all those viewers simply enjoy being assholes and had no further intellectual pursuits in deriving solace from these plot lines disguised as some embarrassing screen fiasco. Doomed from the inception and no increase in budget (which indeed looked very small and misspent) could salvage this train wreck. The change in actors only made it look more miserable.

amkingery I just got around to watching the first two parts of Atlas Shrugged in preparation for the upcoming release of Part III.Looking past all philosophical objectives, this book changed my life. I have never been so connected to a group of characters or a story line in my life as I was when reading it. I don't consider myself an advocate of objectivism, but the way Rand depicts the triumph of the human spirit has always proved to be uplifting for me personally, and I love all of her novels.That being said, I was terribly disappointed in these movies. I feel like the casts did what they could, and that the general idea was portrayed decently, but there is a depth and beauty in the novel that was totally lost in translation to film. The film is left dry and without any real feeling to it. Instead of feeling connected to the story and uplifted by the successes of characters I love, I was bored and disheartened by the total obliteration of one of my favorite books.I also hate how much they give away about the disappearances throughout the movies, when reading the novel you are left in a lot more suspense as to what is happening. So, basically, these movies are a lot like the book if you strip everything away from the book that makes it wonderful.

rickhaelig As captivated as I was by Atlas Shrugged (and The Fountainhead) when I was 19 years old, I find the novel to be sorely lacking in both literary as well as philosophical rigor now that I am well into my forties.Now, onto the movie...It's simply a very bad interpretation of the novel.There are a number of mileposts that have to be honored on the development of the screenplay, but the screenwriter takes a lot of what's said by the characters in the novel and places them too literally into the mouths of the actors in the film. While Rand may have been a philosophical heavyweight and a writer whose output was as voluminous as it was coherent, no one ever accused her of having a gift for dialog and neither Duke Sandefur nor Brian Patrick O'Toole nor Duncan Scott will ever be confused with Aaron Sorkin. I may have outgrown what I consider to an unnuanced and juvenile philosophy -- Rand's Objectivism -- but I still have a tremendous amount of respect for its tenets, and I was very eager to see a steady-handed, well-informed and capable film made from the narrative and ethical standards that Rand set forth. It's as clumsy and difficult to watch as was Gary Cooper's performance as Howard Roarke, and the movie's dialog is terribly as stilted and dry.... and if that weren't bad enough, the casting in this installment is nearly as bad as the first one. I'd watch Taylor Schilling read a Chinese restaurant menu phonetically for two hours, which was enough to pull me through the first film, so the new casting of a less attractive and much older Dagny is a disquieting speed-bump in the transition between acts one and two. After that, Arye Gross as Ken Dannager? He's more of a James Taggart in my mind. Diedrich Bader as Quentin Daniels? Isn't he about 20 years too old for that role? A lot of this comes down to personal interpretation, but it just feels like there was too much dependence on the idea that everyone involved in the film on the producers' side of the camera had to be a libertarian first, without regard for whether or not they had any skill at their job in production -- which, of course, runs absolutely contrary to the principles of objectivism, and which makes this film feel like more of a manifesto than one of Richard Halley's symphonies. There are some truly excellent c- and d-level actors in Atlas Shrugged, but they all seem to be cast into the wrong roles. If you've read (and re-read) the novel like I have, and if at one time or another Rand played an important role in your development as a person (whether or not she's still a constellation that guides your character), you're almost certainly going to want to/have to see this trilogy, but I'm sorely disappointed in the producers for the way that they've cast the movie and written the script. The rest of it -- cinematography, effects, score -- is all (literally) just set-dressing. The script is a total failure, and the casting just makes the producers look like incompetents.

doug_park2001 Even more soap operatic than Part I, Part II also lacks the few scattered exciting moments and variations in scenery we had in Part I (to which I gave three stars).Regardless of one's political persuasion or stance on America's current economic problems, I can't see how anyone could regard this film as anything but ludicrous. Example: The corrupt sell-out CEO James Taggart encounters a fawning groupie of a sales clerk in a bargain store where he's stopped to purchase a tie and immediately marries her. One of the dumbest confrontations in Filmland history takes place at the wedding, where mining mogul Francisco d'Anconia engages Taggart in a heated philosophical debate about the basic function of money in human society.Additionally, most of the acting and script are even more stilted than those in Part I. Still, I must give ASPII an additional star because it's quite funny --albeit, unintentionally--in a number of places. So, maybe watch it as a comedy (?) Nothing really gets resolved here, so I assume we're in for a Part III.