Atlas Shrugged: Part One (Steelbook Special Edition) (2011)

Being a big fan of Ayn Rand's great novel Atlas Shrugged, I expect a less-than-stellar movie version of the book. Happily, I was very pleased with the first installment of the film.

With the length and scope of the story, it requires either an incredibly long movie or a division into different parts, which they decided to do here. While I've heard plenty about the overall low budget of the film, it is still very well done and they spent some good money on CGI effects for the John Galt Line. Taylor Schilling is actually very good as Dagny Taggart she projects the high-end efficiency and passion of the character, and she is appropriately sexy as well. Grant Bowler as Hank Reardon turns out to be a decent choice as well.

Bottom line, though: I brought along my 16-year-old daughter to see the film, and I expected her to find it "boring" or otherwise uninteresting. Big surprise, though: she loved it! She likes the story and was very drawn to the character of Dagny Taggart. Dagny is such an inspirational role model for women, and I'm glad to see my daughter was inspired as well.

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, and probably never will, so I wasn't familiar with the story at all. When the movie was originally released at the theaters, I read one bad review after another, so I opted not to see it at that time. The move recently went on sale with Amazon, so I bought it and watched it. I came away from the movie surprised; surprised at why it got bad reviews and surprised it didn't do better at the box office despite the bad reviews.

For certain, if you're looking for a movie with explosions, action, comedy, gratuitous sex or horror, you're not going to find Atlas Shrugged worth watching, but if you're looking for an erudite, smart and philosophical movie, Atlas Shrugged hits the mark. The complaints about poor production are so wrong it logical to assume it ideologically driven. The acting it convincing and realistic; anyone who's worked for a successful, self-made business person will quickly recognize the character of "Hank Reardon". And the musical score; some reviews described it as over wrought, but the score for Inglorious Bastards is significantly more "over wrought" than Atlas Shrugged.

In short, if movies about business and/or philosophy appeal to you, then this movie is worth your time.

Buy Atlas Shrugged: Part One (Steelbook Special Edition) (2011) Now

This movie is Part 1 of three parts; and it covers the first part of the book.

The movie is well made the quality is actually quite good. Acting was generally good to excellent. Camera work was good; although the low budget resulted in a missing camera angle here and there. Special effects were consistently well done.

The story, of course, is exceptional; and it is well-told in this movie.

Numbers I've seen indicate 80% of the audience (more than 12,000 people were polled) give this movie a thumbs up. And yet, only about 13% of professional movie critics gave this a thumbs up. By voting it down, the professional movie critics really got it wrong. Why? I don't know . . . I am truly surprised that so many movie critics would allow their own political bias to influence their review but I can find no objective reason for the critics' poor grades.

Some people would say that those of the liberal persuasion would not enjoy this; as the message is counter to the socialist perspective. But regardless of the message, we are today living in the world of Atlas Shrugged; and thus, I urge you to watch this movie. If you are to open your mind to new and different ideas, then this is certainly a movie that will challenge you.

Edited on February 4, 2012: Atlas Shrugged Part 2 has now been confirmed to begin the main part of production in April 2012. Yes!!!

Read Best Reviews of Atlas Shrugged: Part One (Steelbook Special Edition) (2011) Here

as the negativists! So many of the one-star maniacs' 'reviews' don't read at all like they actually SAW this movie.

Between that, and movie reviews, I was prepared this just wasn't going to be very good. Just goes to show you should realize that so much of the world is so politicized, it's becoming impossible to get an objective (no pun intended, a la Rand's philosophy) opinion of what the movie is about.

Having said that, I really liked this movie. I liked it so much, I'm going to reread 'Atlas Shrugged,' which I read years ago in college. And while I'll probably still skip over some of the long winded parts of Ayn Rand's commentary (the woman could write, but my God, did she EVER need an editor!!), this movie is so spot-on to what is wrong with this country, and the world, that the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Now to the technical details. I loved the casting. No one has made much of a mention of this, but I think Grant Bowler is perfect as Hank Reardon. His looks are perfect; he's also subtle. Taylor Schilling is fine as Dagney.

The casting of the minor characters is really good as well. I particularly liked Patrick Fischler as Paul (very good cold blooded betrayal there), but I must admit, I adore Graham Beckel. He is absolutely perfect in his role.

The cinematography in this movie is fantastic (a sure sign a reviewer didn't see this movie is when they criticize this!) The score is also perfect.

In fact, the only criticism I have of 'Atlas Shrugged,' and it's a big one, is that the movie is WAY too short. All it did for me was whet my appetite to see MORE of it.

Get some funding already and churn out the rest of this series!

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Capturing the book with a movie is essentially impossible. But this movie did as good a job as could be done to get the point of the book across. If you don't like her philosophy, you wouldn't like the movie, no matter how good it was. If you like her philosophy, you will love the movie. The graphics on a few scenes are kind of lame but considering how little money was spent making this movie, it is mostly surprisingly good!