Near the end of this movie, to relieve the tedium, I started thinking about what could have been done to save it. And I came up with the answer: Ragnar the Pirate.
The name Ragnar the Pirate appears in a newspaper headline at the beginning of the movie and he’s mentioned in passing later on, but that’s all. The screenwriters could have done a lot more with Ragnar the Pirate.
For instance: The two principal characters, railroad heiress Dagny Taggart and steel tycoon Henry Rearden, are in Rearden’s office having one of their intimate, sexy chats about steel smelting when Ragnar the Pirate (Johnny Depp) swishes into the room, skewers Rearden with his cutlass, picks Dagny up in his arms and carries her off to his pirate stronghold. That would wake up the audience.
Unfortunately, Ragnar the Pirate never showed up, and I was left to endure the longest two hours I’ve ever experienced outside of a dentist’s chair.
Members of the Ayn Rand cult have waited 54 years for a movie version of her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. They finally have one that’s true to the letter and spirit of the book. And that’s the problem.
Atlas Shrugged is a hefty doorstop of a novel – over 1,000 pages – that imagines a future where America has gone to hell because of altruism run amok. Unions and big government collude to stifle innovation and crush excellence. Corporations are groaning under the tyranny of bureaucrats who wield powers greater than any Soviet commissar ever had.
In other words, it’s America circa 2011, Tea Party version.
In disgust, a small, brave band of CEOs, hedge fund managers and other über-capitalists finally chuck it all, escape to a libertarian paradise established by the mysterious John Galt and leave the “moochers” and “looters” (i.e., everybody else) to fend for their incompetent selves.
Atlas Shrugged – Part I covers the first phase of this fairy tale. Rand’s novel takes place in some unspecified future period, but the creators of the movie, for reasons unknown, decided to set it in the year 2016. (Maybe the Randroids want us to think this is what the world will be like after eight years of Obama?) The plot revolves around the struggle of Taggart (Taylor Schilling) and Rearden (Grant Bowler) to overcome the bureaucrats, unions and crooked politicians and save Taggart’s railroad.
Watching the movie, like reading the novel, requires considerable suspension of disbelief. We’re expected, for example, to accept the idea that railroads – yes, railroads – are the hot new thing in transportation. And that Hank Rearden has created a miraculous metal (“Rearden Metal”) that’s lighter and stronger than steel, but the bureaucrats, politicians and scientists are conspiring to keep it off the market because it’s too good. And that there are vast untapped oil reserves under Colorado.
OK, whatever. But that’s not the worst of it. Rand was the queen of cardboard characters, wooden dialogue and turgid plots, and Atlas Shrugged – Part I faithfully follows her example.
Much of the “action” consists of long conversations about such thrilling topics as metallurgy and railroad management. The love affair between Dagny and Hank has all the erotic sizzle of a corporate merger. They get more aroused talking about a revolutionary new motor than they do in bed.
The cast of B-list and C-list actors does its best to breathe some life into this corpse, but not even Laurence Olivier could do anything with lines like these:
“I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them.”
“It’s us who move the world.” (Bad grammar as well as bad dialogue.)
“Where is the man that I used to love?” (Yes, Dagny Taggart really says that.)
“This is madness!” (Yes, she really says that too.)
Obligatory list of things I liked about this movie:
1. Taylor Schilling is nice to look at.
2. The scene in which Dagny’s train goes zooming across the Colorado countryside at 250 miles an hour is pretty cool.
Well, maybe we’ll see Ragnar the Pirate in Part II, if there is one. Which, considering what a record-smashing floppapalooza Part I is, seems blessedly unlikely.
Atlas Shrugged – Part 1
★✩✩✩✩
Starring Taylor Schilling, Grant Bowler
Directed by Paul Johansson
Rated PG-13
This article appears in May 12-18, 2011.
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‘Atlas Shrugged’ is one of the great works of American literature. One should read ‘The Fountainhead’ before reading it, as in many ways it is a sequel, although it was intended to be a stand-alone work.
Ayn Rand’s novels do not work on film. She was a philosopher, and her films portray abstract ideas. ‘The Fountainhead,’ starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, was made into a movie in 1941 and would not have worked at all, had Hollywood not focused on its romantic sub-plots.
The fact that a liberal reviewer pans ‘Atlas Shrugged’ bothers me not one whit. The book (not the film) stands on its own as a vision of what America once was and still could be. It is a story about American exceptionalism — not modern-day liberalism.
“The book (not the film) stands on its own as a vision of what America once was and still could be.”
No, it is a fantasy about an America that never was, never will be and never could be. Things simply do not work in the real world the way they do in Rand’s imagination.
You’re right about one thing, though: Rand’s novels do not work on film. They don’t work as novels either.
Boy. You sure must of pissed off Eric Flowers to make him mad enough to send you to watch this piece of doo-doo.
Believe it or not, I volunteered.
Throwing yourself on the grenade to save the rest of us? You’re a good man, Miller. The next drink’s on me.
“‘Atlas Shrugged’ is one of the great works of American literature.”
…if, by “great,” you mean “overblown, simplistic, bombastic, tedious, ludicrous, absurd, and humorless.” There is not one character in that monstrosity, from the heroes to the villains to the extras, walk-ons, and cameos (one of whom is Ayn Rand), who isn’t an asshole.
For the antidote, go here:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/54707
How a Tea Partier (or Ayn Rand cultist) sees the world: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439×1082276
I love this! No, I haven’t even seen the movie-I mean all these Parasitical compassion hoaxing Liberals using non-sequitur logic to TRY to dismiss the great significance-past, present, and future in a last ditch effort to try to keep garnering an unearned livelihood in this anticivilization, as they feel the noose of laissez-faire free economics wring out their last breaths of undeserved oxygen from their sad, pathetic lives. Yes, I could’ve used the five minutes to write this on building my Global Business Empire further, but to see the desperation of Value Usurpers trying to dupe the more and more educated masses to look through their rose colored glasses to see value in their rantings where there is none by disregarding We, the true Value Creators, was Priceless! Thanks H.B.M.! HA! ;op
Robert: I think you’re being sarcastic, but I’m not sure.
Yes, Rand’s characters are one-dimensional and are prone to awkward dialogue, but you seem to be missing the point of the book/movie. That is: The wants or needs of one man do not entitle him to the works of another. I knew this movie would be tough to sit through, as it’s philosophy not action that drives the book. This is a book/movie that should lead one to think – what would happen if . . .? What may have seen implausible 60 years ago now seems possible. One example: The federal government suing Boeing to prevent moving manufacturing from Washington to South Carolina. When put in current context, does her vision now seem so outlandish?
It is no surprise that libs, who are happiest when on the dole, do not get or appreciate this movie. Yes, American IS great. It was, and it will be again. While the libs are busy killing their own babies, guaranteeing their own minority status, and giving away our money to each other as fast as possible, we who proudly “cling to our GUNS and religeon” are growing in voice and numbers. Yes, WE are the sleeping giant of America. WE will take back our country. We will make it greater than ever. We don’t need cars that get 50 miles per gallon. Those little Obama cars look like a real car cut in half. Which is what will happen to them in any accident. Did you ever ask yourself how those big wind turbines are made? First they had to use our big DIESEL dozers to dig the metal laden dirt out of the earth. I know, I worked in a copper mine. Then it took a lot of coal to smelt the metal for the towers and blades. Oh, yes. They had to use diesel to dig the coal. Then it took diesel to move the coal on the conveyor belts. Diesel to deliver the coal to the smelters. Then it took more coal to mold and form the towers and blades for the wind turbines. Then the blades get loaded onto long trailers where our DIESEL trucks deliver them, one at a time, to the site. Let’s see, 3 or 4 blades per turbine. Then several more Diesel trucks to deliver the several pieces of the towers. And another Diesel truck to deliver the housing for the tower, and the internal workings for the generator, and the wiring, etc. And just think, if we get the turbines from some great country, like…China, you remember, our true friend, then we use a whole lot more diesel to ship it here. So much for energy conservation. Ask yourself, how much diesel and coal did it take to produce each one. Times THOUSANDS! All the while you whining loser LIBS keep helping pass more regulations against domestic energy production. You will see the wind generators go away. (Did you know that you cannot ride a horse in many areas of the desert because it might “…disturb the fragile desert ecosystem”. Horse-pucky! Yet, in go the wind turbines. Oh, and then a bunch of Eagles got killed by the wind blades. But, hey, what’s a couple Eagles when we can “go green”. You “people” think that the regulations won’t affect YOU. Wrong. So you think Ayn Rand was boring? Wait till you see what a REAL Socialist country is like. Lucky for you, we won’t see that. Obama is a one term disaster. If you didn’t like November of 2010, you are really going to HATE next year. I am a Constitutional Conservative. I joined the Navy at age 18, because like my Dad, who was a highly decorated WWII soldier, I volunteered to serve my country. In fact, I served 3 tours of Vietnam so you could be wrong. Good luck, oh you Godless fools.
Ah, the delegate from the Republic of Wingnuttia is heard from.
Hey Jim, the last I checked, the Tea Party had a DISapproval rating of something like 72%. So it might just be a little premature to start talking about the whuppin’ you’re going to lay on Obama.