Just dragged my butt home from Civilization and said hello to the dogs. I’ll have more over the weekend, but here’s my quick take on Atlas Shrugged, Part I:
It’s better than anybody had any reason to expect given its low budget and rushed production. Way better.
Yeah, the writing is sometimes clunky and speechifying (though less so than in the novel). Nobody’s going to win any acting Oscars. If you hadn’t read the book, the movie would be hard to follow.
That said, though, Atlas does a lot with a little. There’s gorgeous cinematography of trains and the Rearden steel mill. Producers made clever use of archival footage or “found” opportunities (e.g. scenes of the Rio Norte Line being torn up to build the John Galt Line with Rearden Metal rails were obviously made by shooting real railroad crews at work). Places that are supposed to be rich and lush really look it. The filmakers even made a respectable attempt at creating the kind of sepia-toned art-deco industrial age that usually requires a lot more money. Dagny (Taylor Schilling) and Hank (Grant Bowler) are a little flat, but they grow on you. The CGI was darned good, and there’s a fire that looks like the pit of hell. Writers and editors did a decent, if not brilliant, job with this first third of Atlas’s very complex story.
Could you quibble? Sure. Several important scenes seemed thrown away, and I think they telegraphed way too much about why all those businessmen were disappearing.
But above all its flaws and all its virtues, the most important thing is this: The movie held my attention for the whole hour and 42 minutes. I enjoyed it. I cared about the people in it. I think that was true for the rest of the audience, also. Audience members applauded at the close, and a goodly percentage stayed all the way to the end of the credits — a gesture of respect not too many audiences grant to filmmakers.
More later. But definitely, definitely worth seeing.
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Anybody else? I know I’m not the only one here who saw Atlas today or will see it tonight. Please feel free to chime in.
So, this is “Quick take on Atlas Shrugged, Part I… part I”?
I really want to see this. I hope it goes to DVD soon, since I doubt it will be showing within range of me!
Saw it today, too. I can’t quibble with anything you said.
I, too, thought they gave away a bit too much too soon, but then I’ve read the book. The teaser about where everyone’s gone might be for those who’ve not read it to make sure they buy tickets for part two.
Rand certainly was politically prescient. It’s almost as if she had a crystal ball and looked into 21st century Washington for her inspiration. The only major item she missed was Obamacare.
When I left the theater, I was hoping the whole thing had been filmed and parts two and three would be released before the 2012 elections, but it appears we’re going to have to wait until a year and two years from today for parts two and three.
I guess we can leave this one out of our reviews this month. 😉
Kent, I wish I’d thought of that as a title for my blog post!
Oliver, I’m pretty impressed. I know you don’t rush out to see very many movies — even big ones — on opening day. Hope to read your review on your blog tomorrow. 🙂
For anybody who doesn’t know, Oliver and I have exchanged monthly email movie reviews for … how many years, Oliver? At least seven, maybe more. But Oliver, you might be sorry if I leave Atlas out. With all the deconstruction going on at my house, it’s the only movie I’ve seen this month. The DVD system is in scattered bits and I don’t even remember where I stashed the last two films Netflix sent me.
I find myself relieved at the generally positive tone of this mini-review. I didn’t realize how much I wanted the movie to be good!
I can make allowances for low budget and unknown actors (though “unknown” doesn’t mean BAD), but the hurry-up it took to make the film could cut the props right out from under its quality and especially the theme of the book.
Can’t wait to see it, though I too may have to wait for a DVD.
I concur with everything you said. The movie is far better than I feared, and almost as good as I hoped. The “Hank Reardon” was appealing, Dagny was a bit fragile, the various Hollywood character actors who filled roles like Wesley Mouch and Ellis Wyatt were great. I would not have wanted the job of weaving together the bits and pieces of the book into a reasonable narrative…I felt way too much was left out…but time is always a limitation. Dialog got a bit stilted in places, but then so is the dialog in the book. The scenes were beautifully shot.
Reviewers who hate Rand’s message will hate the movie. Reviewers who know nothing about it might be confused a bit. But the millions of people who have read and appreciate Rand will find a lot to like.
I think we agree, although I found much of the talking to be boring and really wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who has to go out of their way to see it. Movies are supposed to show, not tell, and they didn’t do a good job of that. Nice scenes of Colorado and Trains though 🙂 The best character acting was from Ellis Wyatt, by far. I found all of the others to be flat.
I thought pretty much the same as Claire. I’m hoping (and this isn’t much of a spoiler, seeing a little bit was in the trailer) that the director purposefully left Galt in the shadows, where a little dubbing could put a more expensive and better Galt actor from the sequels retroactively into this film.
I live in the socialist state of Illinois in Waukegan just 50 miles north of Chicago. Arrived at the theater half an hour early to make sure I got a good seat. To my surprise I was the first one there. All told, there were only about 100 people to watch the 6:45 pm showing. I hope this is not indicative of attendance in other places. Of course the weather here was raining, cold, and miserable, so that may have had something to do with it.
Personally, I thought they did a good, not great, job with the movie. I loved the actors they picked to play Hank and Dagny and they did an excellent job.
The way they portrayed Francisco was a let down, and the actor they picked does not fit the image I have of him from the book. While he wanted everyone to think of him as a worthless playboy who could not help throwing his fortune away, I think they went overboard with the clinging woman and drinking in the movie.
And the scene with Hugh Akston at the diner was the biggest let down of all. There is no way that anyone not familiar with the book will be able to realize that this man is a philosopher and not just a fry cook in a diner. They could have made this scene a lot better than they did by following the way it was written in the book.
With these two items aside, and considering the difficultly of bringing this book to the screen in a meaningful way, I thought they did a pretty good job overall and would recommend it to family and friends.
I think this book really needs something like a 12 part mini-series on TV to do it justice, but I do not see this happening in my life time.
It’s funny how much we all agree.
Ellis Wyatt (Graham Beckel) — definitely the best acting job in the film. His force-of-nature personality made everybody else look pallid by comparison. I also liked that he and Owen Kellogg (in his brief appearance) looked like real human beings, not physically perfect as Randian good guys tend to be.
Francisco d’Anconia (Jsu Garcia) — definitely the biggest character-related let-down. Francisco is my favorite Rand character, so I took that one personally. Mac, I’ll bet you’ve pictured him as I have — sleekly European (despite actually being Latin) and sophisticated (ala Porfirio Rubirosa, on whom I’ll bet Rand partly based the character); putting on a facade that’s cynical and worldly-wise rather than just boozy and decadent. In his IMDB stills, the actor is very handsome and could easily have been made to fit “classic Francisco.” Instead, he looked like — sorry to use an old cultural cliche — a greaser.
Hugh Akston — Just a weird portrayal and a disappointingly written scene. More like a truck driver than a former philosophy professor. And boy, they left out the most important elements of Dagny’s encounter with him.
It is GREAT minds that think alike Claire. But I do wonder how many of the people who have not read the book and watch the movie will get IT. Not many in this day and age is my guess.
There were quite a few young people in the audience when I saw the movie, so I hope they get it and we have some hope for the future. But with the speed with which the world is headed to a financial meltdown, I think we have to hit rock bottom before there is any chance of things getting any better. The next year or two will determine which way the world goes.
[…] due to time and budget constraints, and some facets have been updated to reflect modern technology. As Claire reports in her blog, the “writing is sometimes clunky” and speeches abound, but then the book was the same […]
Anxiously awaiting an opportunity to see this movie.
I’m a great fan of “Shrugged” but I realize it must be difficult to get Rand’s story onto film, considering how “wordy” the novel is. But without all the speechifying, it just wouldn’t be Rand, after all.
Anxiously awaiting . . .
🙂
I saw it last night and I liked it. Sadly, I feel that if I didn’t love the book I’d have been put off and probably not read it after seeing the movie.
I’m pretty much in agreement with everything said above about the characters, I was also very dissapointed by the diner scene. Loved Ellis, though I was a little surprised by his first appearance & I’m still a bit confused by the timeline of Wyatt’s disappearance.
I know this is nitpicking but I really wish they’d left in the “2nd assistant bookkeeper” line with Stadler.
I really hope that it does well enough to get Volume 2 and 3 made.
Atlas Shrugged Part 1 – A Review…
I went to the 8:20pm showing of Atlas Shrugged Part 1 last night. It was disappointing. The acting was flat, with one exception for Ellis Wyatt. A number of scenes were too far out of focus, distracting from the characters. Performances were unemotiona…
According to this web site,
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2011/ATLAS.php, the movie is not doing well at all. Only $1,676,917 gross for the 3 day weekend with the highest gross on Friday and falling each day for Sat. and Sun. Unless it picks up by word of mouth I do not think we will see Part 2 and 3.
I’m kind of miffed about the movie. The issue is that, short of taking a plane, there is no way i am going to see it until it is out in DVD. I guess that is the price I pay for living up here in the “Great White North.”
Drat!
“Only $1,676,917 gross for the 3 day weekend with the highest gross on Friday and falling each day for Sat. and Sun.”
I’m not sure this is unexpected. Did anyone really expect “Atlas Shrugged” to be a HIT?
1) The people who’re itching to see it are fans of Rand and the book, and how many of us are out there — relative to the numbers who aren’t? Besides, we couldn’t all get to the theaters where it was playing.
2) There wasn’t a big overall PR for the movie, and what there was, was not long enough or loud enough to gather interest _from the general public._
3) There weren’t many theaters to put it in around the country.
4) With so many other things to do, especially in cities where this movie played, do people go to movies on the weekend nowadays? More people have TV, DVDs, electronic games, and sporting events to occupy their time, and these things all compete with the theater today more than they ever did.
If “Atlas Shrugged” makes any money, it will probably be from DVD/Blu-ray (or whatever comes along in the future) over the long haul — as the book has done over the years. And it may not BE successful until the entire book is produced on film. I’m really not sure what return the producer expected from this one-third of a book. I realize he’s hopeful; but how realistic is it to suppose that the general public will want to see part of a storyline?
Thanks for the figures, Mac. But I’m with Pat. I’ll bet the filmmakers always planned to make most of their money from DVD sales, and the weekend’s numbers don’t sound too bad, considering that Atlas opened in only 300 theaters — about 1/10th of what most mainstream films get. Can’t count parts 2 & 3 out yet …
Putting the Atlas numbers in perspective:
(From http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1662132/rio-box-office.jhtml)
For the number of theaters (300 vs 700), its box office was roughly comparable to the Redford film. (And that’s for a movie that an article like the above doesn’t even bother to mention in the “also opening this week” throwaway paragraph.)
I drove three hours to see this on Saturday. I was pleased to see the theater more than 1/2 full even though it was a mid-afternoon showing.
Here is hoping that the movie will expose some who haven’t read the book to some of the important themes and ideas of the original work.
As movies go, I’d say it was good. When the movie ended I had no idea that it had been more than an hour. I think they did a good job capturing the essence of the book and the actress that played Dagne did an outstanding job building the sexual tension in the relationship between Hank and Dagne.
Comments after the movie made it clear that people saw the relationship between the dystopian world of Atlas Shrugged and our current situation.
The meaningful number here is how much it grossed per theater. Here are some numbers from http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/boxoffice/weekend
Rio: $39225962 / 3827 = $10249.79
Scream 4: $18692090 / 3305 = $5655.70
Atlas: $1686347 / 299 = $5639.96
So Atlas Shrugged was about as successful as the #2 movie of the weekend. Not too bad, given all the factors involved.
Excellent point, LibertyNews.
Here’s another link with the complete breakdown and the newly opening films highlighted in yellow: http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2011&wknd=15&p=.htm
In addition to your figures, here’s how the Atlas numbers compare with the new Robert Redford indie:
#11 The Conspirator – 707 theaters – $4,963 per theater
#14 Atlas Shrugged: Part I – 299 – $5,640 per theater
Not so bad, it seems. And how many DVD sales to come?
Perhaps I’m more of a Rand fan than a critic. Moving a book to the screen is typically a disapointment for serious readers, thus there’s always going to be fault to find in the films. Overall I think, given their low budget & lack of Hollywood support these guys put together a good film, especially since the setting is in 2016.
There were some gaps in Francisco d’Anconia’s presence that only made sense to people who have read the novel. I was so looking forward to his comments towards Hank about money, didn’t happen.
We have found that truly conservative movies are not at all popular in our area (Northern Mississippi) and were thrilled that we wern’t the only ones in the audience. (like we were in I Want Your Money).
Bottom line? For a 1400 page novel, they pulled off a reasonable screen presentation. I marvel that Rand’s work from over fifty years ago can echo today’s headlines.