Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Atlas Shrugged, Part II - The Movie

My wife and I went to see this film last night. While still small by Hollywood standards, producers Harmon Kaslow, John Aglialoro & Jeff Freilich had a bigger budget to work with this time around and it shows in some of the scenes. The entire cast has changed as well. In my opinion most changes were for the better and one for the worse. While I liked the movie I was extremely disappointed that Taylor Schilling did not reprise her role as the central character of Dagny Taggart, I thought she really nailed the role to perfection in Part I (see my review here) and I think that Samantha Mathis, while good in the role, did not portray Dagny's  resiliency and leadership qualities as forcefully as she should have. The rest of the characters are as good or better than Part I.

The movie's backdrop and settings have an eerie quality to them, as they juxtapose an exaggerated version of our current reality with Rand's 1950's vision of the socio-economic environment. John Putch's direction is steady and while some of the dialogue is clunky, I have to say that the adapted screenplay is extremely faithful to Rand's opus and the salient points are chosen and depicted well in various scenes of the film. Overall, I was extremely satisfied with the movie, thus happy with the choice of time and money spent going to see this second part of the possible trilogy. Value for money. I am sure Ayn Rand would want it no other way. 

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