Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Logan Dodd There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Eric Stevenson When I was looking at movie series on RottenTomatoes, I was looking to see what was the lowest rated one of them all that had at least three entries with reviews there. It's none other than this series. I have heard a lot about the book and have no desire to read it. This tells the story of a company that makes metal for railroads. Its employees start quitting and vanishing with no explanation other than people keep asking who John Galt is. That's really all this movie is. It is dreadfully boring. I think the only reason I didn't fall asleep is because the movie was a lot shorter than I thought.Having seen the second one first, I suppose this is slightly better, but it's still crap. This movie is just businessmen talking and talking. Mike Nelson couldn't possibly have seen these films because they are more boring than anything in "The Phantom Menace". At least that one had lightsabers in it! All we have in this movie is talk, talk, talk, and no action at all. I don't remember any of these characters' names. The acting is so bad that all of these characters are dull and uninteresting. If I wanted to watch something like this, I'd watch the news.I'm confused as to why this or the other films haven't been on Rifftrax or Channel Awesome and I think I know why. There's practically nothing to even mock here! Every scene is so monotonous it's hard to tell one from another. There's a big fire but even that's boring. I guess the best thing is probably how short it is. I remember Penn and Teller criticizing the Bible, but then they admitted they read books most people consider dumb like this film. As a long book, if this is supposed to be the Bible for atheists, I'll gladly believe in God. *1/2

clanciai After almost 50 years, this great 20th century novel has at last been turned into a film - in three parts of altogether 4½ hours. The film is naturally not as impressive and complex as the book, but it's still an eye-opener, and its messages get through. Having completed the enterprise of seeing all three films, and having read the book as well, I will try to give the whole thing as objective an evaluation as possible. First of all, it was a great joy to see this great novel filmed at last, especially after almost 50 years and since it's a very difficult and complex story to squeeze into a film at all. The effort on the whole is successful, and I think Ayn Rand (really Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum from Petersburg, Russia,) would have been pleased with it, even in spite of the bathos in the end - but for that I would have given it a 9. The actors are all splendid, the story is made comprehensible, the arguments get through, and the filming leaves nothing to complain of, with a special applause for the train and flight sequences - the accidents (together with the great trial and TV speeches) provide the highlights of the films, and there are quite a number of them in the novel, one more sensational than the other. Also the music is perfectly suited for the story, which is kept in style all the way, with a sigh of relief for at last a great film without any brutality - until the last degrading torture scenes, which fall out. The only irritating detail was for me that the actors are not the same all the way but are switched for every new part. It's not very pleasing to find different persons under the same names for every new part However, no one falls short, and all the three girls playing Dagny, the heroine and center of the story, do her well enough justice. The novel is worth reading and re-reading, while the films don't call for the same desired repetition, at least not for a year or two, but they give a very good introduction and overview of one of the greatest novels of the 20th century - all utopia and speculation, but philosophically very pertinent and relevant, and more so than ever today. It was written (published) in 1957 long before the great hippie movements of the 60s and thus, like everything Ayn Rand wrote, far ahead of its time. It's an additional asset that the films have succeeded in updating the story to the 21st century.

TheGreatAmericanNightmare (Disclaimer...I posted this, my first and only review under a different user name and have since combined accounts and am re-posting this review, unchanged.)VERY minor spoilers maybe...Atlas Shrugged is a massive book and a pretty big read for somebody as young as I was when I read it. I have long felt it would be nearly impossible to make into a movie. Not only because of the scope and depth of the novel, but also because chapter long speeches (thinly veiled as a speech by a character but clearly laying out Ayn Rand's philosophy) would not make for great cinema. I also never thought there would be a wide enough audience to justify the expense of the kind of production it would take to convey the story without a major hatchet job to the original material. The book resonated for me and I think led to helping form my philosophy of life. Don't get me wrong, it has never dominated my thoughts or tempted me to join the Objectivist movement, though I have identified with Ayn Rand's core beliefs. Perhaps not to the extreme, but the foundation of her philosophy is much the way I feel and try to live my life. I suspect the movie would be much more difficult to swallow for someone who has not read the book but I rather enjoyed it. I gave it only a six based on the actual production value and not based on my impression of how well it followed the book, which it did, though hardly inclusively. If I could give it 6.5 I would. There is little passion in the acting, though I don't feel Taylor Schilling was as stilted and dry as others here have implied. As in the book, Dagny Taggart is a very driven and businesslike lady but not a robot. The Rogues Gallery of actors portraying the politicians bent on 'leveling the playing field' are the usual typecast actors playing the same role they play in every movie I've ever seen them in. The leads do a serviceable job, but I think their roles are kind of dictated by the need to cram as much information into a 90 minute movie as possible. To the filmmakers credit they don't use an excessive amount of flashy and annoying quick-cut MTV edits that are so popular today. That makes my head spin. Guess my age is showing. There are actually lingering establishing shots and decent visuals. There isn't much time to actually feel invested in the characters though. An earlier review stated that characters in the movie have, "More depth & complexity than the book." Wow, did we read the same book!? Entire chapters of character development have necessarily been left out of a movie that would take twelve hours to cover the source material properly. As a stand-alone movie it struggles to draw the viewer in and it feels a little soulless. It does succeed, rather haltingly, in conveying the protagonist's feeling (and the author's philosophy) that each person should succeed or fail on their own merits and the government shouldn't exist to redistribute wealth and opportunity. I feel much the same way. The grand conspiracy within the halls of government and the ease with which public opinion is swayed is bit much for me to swallow but I can see the seeds of it existing in reality. Rand's loathing of the communist agenda is clearly the core of this, but again if you haven't read the book then perhaps it is not immediately obvious. As someone who DID enjoy and identify with the novel, not to mention having read many of her works(some of which are pretty dry) I look forward to the remaining parts of this movie in the hopes that once we know the characters we will enjoy it a little more. Short of making a 12 part mini-series out of it, I think this is the best we can hope for out of an adaptation of a work this large.

doug_park2001 It's 2016, the U.S. economy is in tatters, gas costs $37 per gallon, and the government's out to take over private businesses through the benevolently phrased "equalization of opportunity" bill. Also, top CEOs are disappearing after sudden encounters with mysterious men in black. But a couple of far-sighted, common-sense manufacturing executives are diligently trying to liberate the country from corrupt sell-outs and their cronies in Washington. Among other things, they discover the designs for a revolutionary new engine that runs on atmospheric electricity but was somehow just left abandoned in the shell of a Wisconsin factory that went belly-up because it paid its employees according to their needs instead of their contributions.Sound familiar? I did my best to ignore the rather obvious agenda behind this film and simply watch it as a poli/eco/whatever drama. While it has some really fine cinematography and decent acting, ATLAS SHRUGGED is languid, fake, and, in the words of several other reviewers, just plain boring. The opening is quite compelling, and the story has some definite plot-layers; nevertheless, the layers simply don't make a whole lot of sense. None of the story is really resolved here in Part One, and after watching same, I don't even feel much enticed to see Part Two (but I might).