Atlas Shrugged Part II

Well considering the monumental failure of the first installment of the Atlas Shrugged film series which was in part due to it's terrible acting, poor adaptation, and even worse source material, imagine my surpirse when I found out they were doing part two.

Now I think anyone who followed the films has probably known about this for some time, but courtesy of Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature (an excellent blog dedicated to demolishing all of Ayn Rand's silly ideas) I've seen the most recent trailer for part two. Well let me just say that other than being dramatically large hams (but hey, given the subject material...) and still peddling tha nonsense ideology they managed to actually make this movie look interesting. Now that's quite a feat.

The trailer is actually pretty well and competently strung together, the actors all seem more human (or at least doing their best to take the subject matter semi-seriously and not verge on self-parody) and capable of putting on a brave face. I for one would be delighted if they portrayed this film as a subtle parody of Rand's works, still interesting to watch but the actors very aware of just how dumb everything being spoken and preached to the audience, is. For a great example see Micheal Ironsides preformance in Starship Troopers.

Now this of course is probably not going to happen (sigh) but a man can hope. Rather than totally skip out on even viewing this film, like part one, I may actually pirate it after it's DVD release.

Having read the book (four months of agony) I remember that I liked part three the best as at least things happened without hundreds of pages worth of useless build up. Part two in comparison was only marginally interesting. Still slow and ranting but its conclusion was worthwhile at least.

I'm certainly looking forward how they can pull of some of the 'heroes' blatant near terrorist attacks in a positive light for a modern audience (I only say near because of their intention to not kill people but deny resources, but considering where many of these attacks take place and that many were for essential items the chances of not doing so is nill). Not that I predict to many normal people seeing this film. Hell I'd see it, mostly to criticize of course but that's because I so passionately loathe the material behind it. Though seeing how they manage to pull off some of Rand's more questionable moral points would be interesting in the least. If, as it looks, they put everything in a straight, pulled right off the page way, then I can see this film getting even more hate from potential audience members. It might not even be a bad film if they dumbed down the author rant message and presented it as more right-wing mantra with the parable of bad government put up to eleven. Sadly though since it's coming straight from the heart of Objectivist theory that is all but improbable.

Well that's all for this post folks. Hopefully you won't go see this movie do what I do (and many of its other 'fans' did) and pirate it off the internet!

Here's the trailer for your viewing 'pleasure'. Enjoy!!