Well. It happened: they actually made a sequel to last year's cringe-worthy "Atlas Shrugged Part I," which was savaged by critics (amazing Roger Ebert quote: "the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone's vault"), and even in its limited theatrical run not much of a hit (making less than $5 million against its $20 million production budget). Next month, Rocky Mountain Pictures, the studio behind such surefire classics as "Billy: The Early Years of Billy Graham," anti-evolution movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," and current wing-nut hit "2016: Obama's America," will release "Atlas Shrugged Part II," which has a vague air of "not classy enough to run on SyFy Channel, despite similar-quality visual effects" next month. Here is a trailer (via Film Stage) to prove it's not some terrible nightmare you had after ingesting too many Doritos-shell tacos.
Loosely following Ayn Rand's influential objectivist novel, the cinematic take on "Atlas Shrugged" apparently involves some kind of futuristic train and a sinister-looking Ray Wise. Just last night "American Psycho" was on cable and we were wondering what happened to Samantha Mathis (she is so funny in that scene where Christian Bale takes her to dinner), well, apparently she's stuck doing bullshit like this. The budget seems to have been upped a little bit, but we were too stuck on lines like "We can all agree capitalism doesn't work," which seem primed to elicit an election year response.
Jason Beghe, Esai Morales (!), Patrick Fabian, and Kim Rhodes also star in this nonsense (it's notable that few of the cast members from the first film are returning), which also has a new poster that looks like the first lesson in a "How Not To Use Photoshop" class.
"Atlas Shrugged Part II" opens on October 12th, when it will become Paul Ryan's favorite movie of the year. Hopefully you'll have something better to do.
I'm a fan of the book on which this is based, but the first movie was horrid. It was just bad art all around. The writing, acting and direction were all horrible. Just because I like a book that something is based on doesn't mean that I need to pretend that bad art is any good. I'll see the second part, but I don't have high expectations. The fact that the writers, director and actors have been replaced gives me a LITTLE hope, but not much.
With all that said, the article you've written here shows why some libertarians and conservatives see people on the left as biased about this issue. The fact that you refer to the film as "this nonsense" is clearly only because you disagree with its political position. That's an offensive and ridiculous way to cover film. You would serve your readers better to keep your political opinions separate from your artistic opinions.
The film is probably going to stink. If you want to savage it for being bad art, please do so. But you lose credibility when you criticize it before anyone has seen it, just because you disagree with it.
I watched Atlas Shrugged Part I a few months ago on DVD. I thought it was well worth my time and a fair representation of the book. It was certainly better than much of what is offered as "entertainment" by the numerous "movie channels" on cable. I can't help but wonder why it has yet to make it's way to the TV screen? I'm certain it must have something to do with the films producer not needing the money or wanting the exposure. I mean, the idea that there is some dark conspiracy trying to keep the movie on the shelf while wishing it had never even been made in the first place is just…well, Ayn Randish.
I'm going to see the second film just because it's based on the best, most epic book ever written. However, I expect it to not be nearly as good as the book (as is the case with all books turned into movies). I wish they would have made Atlas Shrugged into a mini-series instead of a trilogy of movies because part of the genius of the book was its deep character development. Characters like Francisco, Hank, and Dagny were my heroes while reading the book…. I just hate to see them put into a movie where so many of the fantastic things they would say (in the book) are condensed or stripped out entirely.
Is this the last one or will there be an episode 3 at some point?
LOL at the comments here. So anyone who didn't like the movie is automatically an egg-sucking liberal who wants government up the ass? I lean towards libertarianism in a lot of ways but I don't like Atlas Shrugged because it's a shitty book: bad writing with a stupid, immature and narrow-sighted philosophy at its core. And as everyone but Kyle Smith (who doesn't even try to maintain a veil of objectivity these days) pointed out the movie was awful.
Hey, look at that, another objective review of an anti big government movie. Not bad, eight insults of in the first paragraph. I can guess who you voted for. I assume Mr. Taylor has never read Atlas Shrugged, or he would know better than to characterize the movie as revolving around a frigging train and sinister looking character. I mean, at least describe the plot accurately if you are going to pretend to be a professional. I suspect if Michael Moore had done another outhouse quality movie about how great socialism is, our reviewer would need to take a couple paper towels with him into the theater. But a movie that points out the folly of big government, crony capitalism and political corruption doesn't rate a civil review. You get no argument that the first movie could be better, but at least someone bothered to try, and the fans got it. I never expected any of the hollywood ellite to give it a shot.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2 will be in theaters October 12th, 2012.
what a piece of junk.
Well, it looks better than the first one, at least. But that's not saying much.
In before Randanistas who live in studio apartments and work drive-throughs calling the Playlist out for being unproductive parasites.
CAN'T WAIT! I know it's going to be terrible (like the first one), but if it introduces just one more person to Ayn Rand's philosophy, it's worth it.