If you have followed me for a while you probably already
know that I am somewhat of a fan and critic of the work of Ayn Rand. I love her
stories, and her economic policies, but her stance on religion and refusal to
admit she could be wrong? Eh, not so much. Still, list Atlas Shrugged among my all-time
favorite books. Not just because of its central theme of economic liberty, but
because of the near prophetic way she predicted what business life in America
would be like 50 years before we got here. More troubling is her dire
predictions about how much worse things will get if we do not change course
now.
Her writings come from personal experience. The daughter of
a baker, Rand saw her home and business stripped from her during the Bolshevik
revolution. Despite the promises of the revolutionaries to the people, Rand saw
their inability to create the better world that was promised. In fact, life got
much worse. Her father was never able to find gainful or meaningful work again,
and the family struggled to put food on the table. Angry, and reasonably
bitter, Rand fled to America, and to her horror, she found our country headed
in the exact same direction Russia had gone. But where Russia did it by violent
revolution, America was being led there by so called “Progressives,” who were
taking us there in baby steps.
Rand began to write as a warning to America of what was to
come. A vocal critic of Progressives, she found herself the target of the left.
Tragically, she wasn’t any more fond of Christianity than her Communist
counterparts, and was quick to alienate what could have been a key ally in the
war for individual liberty: The Religious Right.
Rand had few fans in her day, but it was enough that her
first book was made into a successful movie, The Fountain Head. This movie was so successful that Hollywood’s Al
Ruddy (The Godfather, Million Dollar
Baby) gladly pounced on Atlas Shrugged, but the deal fell apart when Rand
refused to allow the production to reduce John Galt’s 60 page speech at the end
of the book down to five minutes. Tragically, Rand fell victim to her own
absolutism, and the original production died.
Bowler (left) and Schilling (Right) as Hank and Dagney |
Yeah, I slept through Samantha Mathis' performance too. |
Now we’re on to the third part. I wish Atlas Shrugged Part 3
had never been made. I truly do. I had serious doubts that the movie producers
could deliver the vision Rand had for this third part, which involved a freedom
loving, high tech metropolis, pirate raids, and a doomsday weapon manufactured
by the government. Nevertheless, John Aglialoror kept assuring people this
movie would be awesome, and it would improve upon the second one. I had
expected that we would be back to form with this entry. Moreover, the news that
Laura Regan, who had at least appeared in a larger budget film as the younger
Audrey in Unbreakable, was replacing
the craptacular Samantha Mathis gave
me some hope that at least Dagney would be capable of emoting again.
Laura Regan proved that you could do worse than Samantha
Mathis. This woman looks to be about
as old as Samantha Mathis, when Dagney
should be a great deal younger (Taylor Schilling). Moreover, here she is
playing a wealthy woman, and yet her shampoo is so cheap that her hair is dryer
than the West Desert. Not to mention broken out into all kinds of split ends.
"Umm, John Boy, what was my line again?" |
Rand’s grand vision of an Objectivist Utopia is reduced to a
town that reminds me of Grantsville, Utah. Now that’s okay with me, I love
Grantsville. I love it, because as a Jeffersonian Republican, I favor rural
communities. What Galt’s Gulch was, was a thriving metropolis. Moreover, the
people inhabiting Galt’s Gulch aren’t necessarily my age. It looked more like a
retirement community to me than what Rand wrote about. Except for John Galt,
played surprisingly competently by Kristopher Polaha, (Life Unexpected, North Shore) the only capable actor in the entire
production. I wonder if his paycheck was so large that it ate the rest of the
budget for the rest of this dung heap?
"All ya'all gatta work for yer beers!" |
Then there’s the doomsday weapon, Project F. In the book,
this death ray was so volatile it had to have Reardon Metal to make it stable.
That is why they wanted the metal so badly. That fact isn’t even mentioned in
the film, where Project F is reduced to a glorified car battery they hook up
Galt’s nipples to. I wish I was just being crass, but I am sadly being literal. Plus, Hank Reardon, a pivotal character
in the book, is literally reduced to a phoned in performance. As in: one phone
conversation… That’s it.
The most exciting parts of the third part of Rand’s book
would have made compelling celluloid; however, these scenes are glanced over by
still shots and a narrator who sounds an awful lot like Glenn Beck, trying not
to sound like Glenn Beck. Beck, Wilkow, Hannity, and Ron Paul all have
appearances though. Now, I love these guys (though Rand would have hated them due to their religious convictions), don’t get me wrong. However, their cameos
were the only scenes worth watching, and were all in response to Galt’s speech... which was cut down from 60 pages in the book to 5 minutes in the movie. And here is where
we circle back to Al Ruddy.
Rand broke from Ruddy precisely because he wanted to do what
ended up being done any way. Rand’s absolutism has led to the movie based on
her magnum opus starting with promise, but ending in disaster. Had she not been
such an absolutist, so insistent on having her way, the producer of the
Godfather would have produced this film a long time ago. And Al Ruddy has a
long track record of absolute excellence. These movies could have been great.
Instead you have one that’s good, one that’s a little worse than okay, and one
that feels like it was made by a local
Church Road Show, rather than an actual movie studio.
While John Aglialoro had intended to argue on behalf of Rand’s
beliefs on film, he instead ended up making the case against her absolutism,
showing what can happen when you look a gift horse in the mouth. I am so angry
with how bad this movie turned out, I want my money back and I want them to
issue an apology to everyone who contributed on Kickstarter. Lastly, I want
them to do this one over again, but this time get some real talent behind it.
Get Grant Bowler and Taylor Schilling back, and do it right!
Assuming this movie does hit Blu Ray, I will probably pick
it up out of the $5.00 bargain bin, but only to complete the trilogy. I will
probably never watch this dung heap again.
0 out of 5 stars. Quite literally, the worst movie… no…
thing… ever made, and that is coming from a Rand fan, supporter, and loving
critic. Yes, worse than Batman and Robin.
No comments:
Post a Comment