11/11/2023 0 Comments Atlas shrigged os boring![]() ![]() It’s immoral, illegal and possibly outright evil, sure, but it makes a modicum of sense. It certainly was cheaper to ignore the rat meat and human fingers in our canned food, and it certainly benefits politicians (on some level) to take care of their rich campaign donors over their constituents. The history of mankind is littered with corruption on the part of both politicians and purely capitalistic industrialists, but at least their motivations make sense. The protagonists, Taggart and Rearden, remain paragons of incorruptibility while the antagonists, basically the government as a whole, remain committed to absurd political policies that nobody in reality is actually suggesting, or that even seem like a plausible extrapolation of current regulatory policy. Putch’s film, aided no doubt by a faster-paced screenplay, manages to actually engage you once in a while in Atlas Shrugged’s constant backdoor dealings, obfuscating the film’s extreme simplification of its greater argument to the extent that it almost seems to work.īut they’re still telling the same story, and that story still plays like an outlandish parable. The workmanlike cinematography and editing of Atlas Shrugged: Part One has been replaced with some canny visual storytelling, and the acting is an enormous improvement across the board, particularly Esai Morales, who seems more engaged than I’ve ever seen him, and Mathis, who surpasses the performance of Dagny Taggart in the first film by experiencing genuine human emotions. Despite his overwhelming influence, John Galt’s identity is a much less enticing mystery after two whole films than Keyser Soze’s was after just half of The Usual Suspects.īut otherwise, it must be said that new director John Putch (who previously brought you the straight-to-video American Pie Presents: The Book of Love) knows how to elevate this material. This willy-nilly application of an obvious catch phrase robs it of its dramatic power. Depending on the scene, the query can either be a fatalistic exclamation, a damning expletive or a casual punctuation. I’m particularly hazy on when it’s an appropriate time to ask “Who is John Galt?” in casual conversation. I still haven’t read the novel Atlas Shrugged, largely because the original film made it look so boring, but the result is that certain elements of this movie trilogy elude me. In the meantime, they continue to seek answers to the ubiquitous question “Who is John Galt?” and attempt to fix the prototype perpetual energy machine they found locked away in a disused factory over the course of the last film. The government, oppressively focused on “the greater good,” is in the process of regulating private industry to death, leaving Taggart and her married lover Henry Rearden, now played by the perpetually hoarse Jason Beghe, the only two people in the country with the power and sense of personal responsibility necessary to fight the fascistic socialization of the economy. ![]() Dagny Taggart, now played by Samantha Mathis (remember her?), finds the noose tightening around her in this new installment. ![]()
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