The movie you've been waiting for...if you're a devotee of le bad cinema as I am opens today! Atlas Shrugged Part 1 ("AS") - the Ayn Randed spectacle of a train wreck of a movie opens today! It promises to be on a par with the worst movie of the 21st Century so far, "Battlefield Earth."
There's only one problem though...unlike "Battlefield Earth," which had big $cientology bucks and clout to get it into mass distribution (or Mel Gibson's Star Power for the hilarious knee-slapper "Passion of the Christ") they can only get it 300 theatres nationwide at the moment. So it goes.
But the reviews are coming in! It's going to rival "Battlefield Earth" in its ravingly bad reviews! Let's get some popcorn and get into some of them, shall we?
First, remember the high standards for le bad cinema that Battlefield Earth has already set: the NY Times raved on May 12th 2000, "It may be a bit early to make such judgments, but ''Battlefield Earth'' may well turn out to be the worst movie of this century."
Well, let's see what we have here: Rotten Tomatoes gives it a whopping 7% on its Tomatometer! (That's pronounced toe-MAH-toe-meh-ter.) Ah, 'tis true though: Battlefield Earth beat it with 3 or 4% on the Tomatomer.
Let's go to Roger Ebert:
There are...people who take Ayn Rand even more seriously than comic-book fans take "Watchmen." I expect to receive learned and sarcastic lectures on the pathetic failings of my review.
And now I am faced with this movie, the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone’s vault...
The dialogue seems to have been ripped throbbing with passion from the pages of Investors’ Business Daily. Much of the excitement centers on the tensile strength of steel...
So OK. Let’s say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you’re an objectivist or a libertarian, and you’ve been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It’s not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?
The movie is constructed of a few kinds of scenes: (1) People sipping their drinks in clubby surroundings and exchanging dialogue that sounds like corporate lingo; (2) railroads, and lots of ’em; (3) limousines driving through cities in ruin and arriving at ornate buildings; (4) city skylines; (5) the beauties of Colorado. There is also a love scene, which is shown not merely from the waist up but from the ears up. The man keeps his shirt on. This may be disappointing for libertarians, who I believe enjoy rumpy-pumpy as much as anyone.
Ah, nothing like a bad review!
Wait...I must be honest...not all the reviews are bad...the only bad ones, in fact are the ones you find from the mainstream media...which of course you can't trust...
I recently had the opportunity to view a pre-release version of Atlas Shrugged Part 1, which is appropriately scheduled for release on tax day, April 15. You need not waste your time with the mainstream media’s reviews of this film, as I can assure you that the critical reception will be overwhelmingly negative. Simply put, this is the movie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see...
Contrary to conventional wisdom of today’s society, capitalist “producers” are heroes instead of villains. “Moochers” that loot the production of “men of mind” through obscure and invasive regulations of a government gone rampant are portrayed as the real villains. It demonstrates the logical conclusion of a government intruding upon individual lives, freedom, production and liberty when the actual “producers” go “on strike.”...
The cinematography and acting are both strong, but as with any film, one’s opinion of how it could have been improved is filled with all the perspective of a Monday morning quarterback. Mainstream critics will likely focus on these aspects of Atlas Shrugged Part I while completely missing or ignoring the actual message of this important work, which is expertly conveyed.
Who is John Galt?
Man, I wish I could write like that! Don't actually talk about the movie, but trash "moochers" (and unions, and folks concerned about CO2)!
But even that winger couldn't hide it: he's almost saying, "Don't mind the fact that it's a crappy flick! There's moochers over there!"
If you troll the right wing cybersphere, you'll see that they're applauding this film like good Stalinists. And they are. As far as I'm concerned, there's not a dime's worth of difference between ideological conservatives and ideological Communists...but I digress.
One more review to savor, from "The Playlist." I swear to Void I chose this at random:
The shame of “Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” irrespective of politics and prose, is that a work so long-discussed has been so blatantly bastardized in the name of a quick buck. Produced at the expense of Rand’s labor of love, the meticulous author herself would surely condemn this paper-thin attempt. Talents greater than this assemblage have struggled and failed to get a hold on the material for a proper adaptation, but here Aglialoro and Co. merely take advantage of timing, delivering a cut-rate travesty of low rent celluloid sure to win back its meager budget (and even draw some defenders) purely on the basis of good timing. Perhaps it will even be enough to propel the unlikely (and unwanted) Part II and III.
In that sense, the movie is no doubt a microcosm of the whole problem of the damned ideology! It produces crap! Just like the Stalinist Soviet Union!