I had read several exceedingly harsh professional reviews prior to seeing this movie which probably prepared me for the movie a bit. I had no high hopes for a movie from a One Tree Hill director on a shoestring budget, but in some ways was pleasantly surprised, while in other ways deeply disappointed, thus overall it was about what I expected.
I will start with the negative before looking at the positive I found in this film.
I had three major issues with this film, and one or two minor ones. Firstly, there were a great number of shots in which heads were inexcusably cut off. This is okay in certain situations, but this was applied just about every chance they had. One shot in particular had Henry Rearden's (the leading man) head entirely missing from the frame.
This was further exacerbated by my second issue: the editors, for some unexplainable reason, had a desire to add the worst vignette effect I have ever seen. It is normal to darken the corners of an entire movie -- just watch any major motion picture and you'll notice it. This, however, darkened every edge which was very distracting...especially when something important was made barely visible due to this heinous post-production which had nothing to do with the relatively low budget.
Finally, I found every performance acceptable and pretty much entirely believable save the main character, Dagny Taggart. The character seemed far too stiff with such an incredible lack of depth up until the last half hour of the film.
A minor issue I had seemed to be everyone else's major issue which they seemed to let drive their negative review of the film (regardless of its artistic merit) -- the politics. I personally hold to libertarianism so I agree with the politics, but the way it was presented was just too "in your face" to keep it from being raw propaganda. Yes, how governments should be run should be different from how corporations should be run and both should be different from how individuals live their lives, and yes, individual freedom is the most important thing in all of this, but jeez...glorifying what was supposed to be such a selfish attitude was begging for negative reviews.
I couldn't believe how awful it was put when Dagny's line was spoken, "What's up with all of this altruism lately?" (this may not be an exact quote as I'm going off memory). *People* should be altruistic, but not forced to be so, and I think that message wasn't pushed forth clearly enough in this adaption.
Also, it was a little frustrating to watch how forced the romance appeared to be. I'm not sure if it seemed the same in the novel as I've never personally read Atlas Shrugged, but even if it was, I think it would have been prudent to deviate from the book in this instance. I personally couldn't take the romance seriously until the morning after.
Finally, here is what I enjoyed about Atlas Shrugged: Part I.
I was surprised by how much of the cast I recognized. There was "Big Love" from House M.D. playing Eddie. And over there playing his normal bossy self was Buddy the Elf's dad's selfish and cruel boss. It took some googling to figure out that I had seen over half of the cast in various films, but it was a nice surprise.
I think the large amount of railroad shots they had worked very nicely, and was caught off guard a bit by how many there were, once again, considering the budget. There were actually a variety of shots that I was impressed with.
The pacing was pretty decent (although I felt like I had just watched two stories in spite of it actually only being a third of one), and it actually made me interested in seeing the sequels. The cast was mostly enjoyable to watch, although far from the best I've seen. It was a solid film, regardless of the director's affinity for beheading the talent, and I would actually recommend it to anyone with a decent attention span.
Overall, I think this was a decent film, but if you're expecting anything more than a relatively low budget political drama, you'll be sorely disappointed.
I will start with the negative before looking at the positive I found in this film.
I had three major issues with this film, and one or two minor ones. Firstly, there were a great number of shots in which heads were inexcusably cut off. This is okay in certain situations, but this was applied just about every chance they had. One shot in particular had Henry Rearden's (the leading man) head entirely missing from the frame.
This was further exacerbated by my second issue: the editors, for some unexplainable reason, had a desire to add the worst vignette effect I have ever seen. It is normal to darken the corners of an entire movie -- just watch any major motion picture and you'll notice it. This, however, darkened every edge which was very distracting...especially when something important was made barely visible due to this heinous post-production which had nothing to do with the relatively low budget.
Finally, I found every performance acceptable and pretty much entirely believable save the main character, Dagny Taggart. The character seemed far too stiff with such an incredible lack of depth up until the last half hour of the film.
A minor issue I had seemed to be everyone else's major issue which they seemed to let drive their negative review of the film (regardless of its artistic merit) -- the politics. I personally hold to libertarianism so I agree with the politics, but the way it was presented was just too "in your face" to keep it from being raw propaganda. Yes, how governments should be run should be different from how corporations should be run and both should be different from how individuals live their lives, and yes, individual freedom is the most important thing in all of this, but jeez...glorifying what was supposed to be such a selfish attitude was begging for negative reviews.
I couldn't believe how awful it was put when Dagny's line was spoken, "What's up with all of this altruism lately?" (this may not be an exact quote as I'm going off memory). *People* should be altruistic, but not forced to be so, and I think that message wasn't pushed forth clearly enough in this adaption.
Also, it was a little frustrating to watch how forced the romance appeared to be. I'm not sure if it seemed the same in the novel as I've never personally read Atlas Shrugged, but even if it was, I think it would have been prudent to deviate from the book in this instance. I personally couldn't take the romance seriously until the morning after.
Finally, here is what I enjoyed about Atlas Shrugged: Part I.
I was surprised by how much of the cast I recognized. There was "Big Love" from House M.D. playing Eddie. And over there playing his normal bossy self was Buddy the Elf's dad's selfish and cruel boss. It took some googling to figure out that I had seen over half of the cast in various films, but it was a nice surprise.
I think the large amount of railroad shots they had worked very nicely, and was caught off guard a bit by how many there were, once again, considering the budget. There were actually a variety of shots that I was impressed with.
The pacing was pretty decent (although I felt like I had just watched two stories in spite of it actually only being a third of one), and it actually made me interested in seeing the sequels. The cast was mostly enjoyable to watch, although far from the best I've seen. It was a solid film, regardless of the director's affinity for beheading the talent, and I would actually recommend it to anyone with a decent attention span.
Overall, I think this was a decent film, but if you're expecting anything more than a relatively low budget political drama, you'll be sorely disappointed.