Atlas Shrugged Part1 reviewed! Fennecritic Film Review
Jaspian the Fennec Critic reviews...
Atlas Shrugged
part1
I'm sure that many of you already know this, but Atlas Shrugged is my favorite novel. Its the finest work of written literature I've ever beheld. Masterfully-written, passionate, highly charged, opinionated, controversial, with compelling characters and situations, the author Ayn Rand, takes it far beyond anything else that has ever been written. But its Libertarian to its core, and that is probably why, despite it being the #2 most influential book in America (behind The Bible), it has never been made into a movie. Hollywood doesn't like Libertarianism.
So I'm sure it should come as no surprise to anyone that this film was independently-produced, and for a painfully low budget (a mere $10 million), but the film industry is already considering it for what its worth. Initially, the only theater in my area willing to show it was an art theater in Boston. Then the AMC closest to me announced that it would be showing the film for one-night-only. Then my usual theater did the same, but it would be in on of the smaller "arthouse" screens. By the time I saw it, not only had it been moved to a standard screen, but was booked to remain on that screen for at least the next week. I heard reports that across the country, opening night was literally selling out. I'm not sure if this comes as a surprise to me or not, considering that the film has had virtually no publicity, has no big-name actors or directors, and isn't even coming out of a major studio... but I guess word got out, and I hope this new studio makes a ton of money and gives Hollywood a run for its money.
When I first heard confirmation that Atlas Shrugged was going to be made into a film, I had mixed emotions. The way its written doesn't exactly lend to easy screen adaptation. There's a lot of inner monologue, feelings, and the book is ridiculously long (over 1000 pages of 6 pt font). Additionally, it lacks a lot of the bluster that modern films have. There are few "action" sequences... the big one consisting only of a train crossing a bridge at breakneck pace... and so I wasn't sure Atlas Shrugged should even be made into a film. If it was to be made into a film, it would have to be very long, and well-financed. As excited as I was to know that the story of Dagny Taggart was finally going to be put to screen, I was sure they were going to cock it up.
.... But after seeing it, I'm not so sure. While I think the tone of the film was generally on-par, a lot of the details were sub-par. The sound recording and score was distinctly ametuerish, but... while I don't mean to make excuses for them, I should point out that this was an ametuer film. Score and sound engineers are union labor, controlled by the studios, and the creators of this film wouldn't have had access to such experienced talent. Second, the acting was god-awful. The actors, for the most part, were television actors, some of the actors in the minor roles were passable, but the lion's share of the acting was just awful. This was due (in part) to a terrible job at casting. The actress that they cast for Dagny Taggart is a 26-year-old. In the book Dagny is 35. In the movie she looks like a girl, and talks like a girl, with a slightly lazy soft voice. I imagine that Dagny would look distinguished and talk more like a man in terse "get-to-the-point" language. I can't say the same for Hank Reardon, who at least looks the part. The acting for the most part was very monotoned and dispassionate, and I wasn't convinced of any of their characters. The pacing of the film is off from the very beginning, starting out with a newsreel montage of essentially an economic apocalypse, which creates an unsustainable intensity. The rest of the film moves along very quickly, often with characters talking over eachother as if they wanted to keep the film as short as possible... which I think would be a mistake considering the legnth and detail of the book. I think that viewers who didn't read the book would be confused at all the names and places and companies and laws and rules that are passed. They really never went out of their way to clarify any of it. Also the beginning montage reel seems different than the book, which I believe was more of a slow social atrophe into a second great depression. I think the story (and the audience) would have been better served with better set design. We didn't need a montage reel to know that the world of Blade Runner, for example, was a horrible fetid dystopia - all you had to do is look at all the misery - and that wouldn't have ruined the pacing so much. The pacing *does* get better as the film progresses, and less of the story is left out (albeit some elements are out of order). Some of the special effects at the end, I felt were very respectable (although I would have liked to have seen Wyatt's refinery *before* it burned down to get like a "before and after" look).
And my last qualm (as if these weren't enough), is the sex scene. While remaining modest in both the book and the movie, the sex scene in the book is orgasmically carnal. Its easily the best sex scene in any literature ever, and it is that way because its extremely heady (also Ayn Rand seems to have had a bit of a flare for the kinky), but in the movie it's more of just a standard "lovemaking".
So yes - there is a lot of problems with Atlas Shrugged (the movie) part 1, but it is ATLAS SHRUGGED IN MOVIE FORM which counts for a lot. Fans of the book are likely to be fans of the film, even though I suspect you (like me) will recognize a myriad of flaws (perhaps even some I might have missed) that plague the film. If you haven't read the book, I'm not going to tell you NOT to see the film because I'd like it to be successful so that there's someone capitalized to compete with the Hollywood media juggernaut (I think we'd all benefit from a little more variety in film), but if you haven't read the book I think there's a good chance you'll get confused. And so I regretfully must give Atlas Shrugged a mere "one ear perked" because despite ITS ATLAS SHRUGGED, there are just too many problems. I just hope it makes enough money for the film industry to recognize someday that its a film worth making right, with a proper cast and budget, and then maybe we really will have Atlas Shrugged on the big screen.
Thanks for reading!
Yip!
-Jas