Atlas Shrugged Part 1 [Blu-ray] [Import]

Atlas Shrugged is one of the most influential and best-selling books of all-time. It is also one of the longest.

This movie covers the first third of the novel and does an acceptable job of condensing lots of material into a short amount of time. The cinematography is excellent and the acting is good. Please be aware that this is not meant to be a frivolous movie with shallow characters and meaningless dialogue. The main characters love to work hard and create. They respect other people that are productive and passionate about what they do. They don't waste a lot of time with small talk and empty pleasantries. This may cause some viewers to feel that the conversations in this movie are flat because we have been trained as movie-viewers to expect one-liners, sarcasm, and a lot of idle chit-chat.

Overall, I really like how they portrayed the main character Dagny Taggart. She is driven and results-oriented but not masculine or overly aggressive. She is actually quite soft-spoken and calm in demeanor. She treats others with respect and although she clearly has self-respect and self-confidence she is not arrogant. What a contrast with how Hollywood portrays other executives (especially female executives) such as in the "Devil Wears Prada", "The Proposal", "Wall Street", etc.

Atlas Shrugged is about the importance of individual liberty and how increasing governmental intrusion into our lives restricts our personal freedoms and decreases the overall prosperity of a nation. Taxes and regulations are obstacles to innovation and entrepreneurship--they take all the fun out of creating new businesses and are the cause of many business failures. (How many great ideas have died because of bureaucratical red tape? How many people are working at jobs they hate because the costs of tax and regulation compliance make it unprofitable to pursue their dreams? We will never know.)

As in most cases, the movie is not as good as the book. Simply watch the movie first and you will not be disappointed. I look forward to the sequels and will buy them as soon as they are released.

Like others, I've worn out heaven knows how many copies of the paperback novel, and often wondered how it would fare as a movie -- in the commentary, even the producers commented that prior to filming, it was the only epic novel that had never made it to the screen.

And they did a marvelous job, allowing for having to considerably compress the chronology of the story and to work around a major chunk of Rand's book being expository. Part 1 covers from the beginning to the igniting of "Wyatt's Torch", and does take some artistic liberties with the story-line ... in particular, it's not till much later in the book that the nature of the strike, and the fact that John Galt is a real character, are revealed.

My only gripe is with casting ... Matthew Marsden as James Taggart seemed horribly miscast. In the book he's, IIRC, a fair bit older than sister Dagny and a fairly strong, if relatively unprincipled, industry exec. In the film he comes across as not only acting wimpy and whiny, but even looks younger than Dagny. I understand that the *entire* cast was replaced for Part 2, due out later this year, and it'll be interesting to see how that changes things.

The maiden trip of the super-train, the first to run on Rearden Metal rails (and over an impressive-looking bridge of the same material) was one of the high points of the book, and is paid proper homage in the cinematography, as at least one other reviewer had noted.

Regardless of your socio-polico-economic leanings, this is a great film.

Only a crazy Ayn Rand fan would probably order this. Acting was just OK but I will probably order Part II because the book is my all time favourite. Read it 3 times! Objectivism rules!