ATLAS SHRUGGED? More like ATLAS (BLEEP) YOU.

So.... thoughts?  Simple really:


Fuck. Ing. DULL.


I haven't walked out of a movie in so long, and to anyone who is offended in advance I apologize... sorta.  But this one was the one that I unintentionally have been waiting for. Granted, and I will admit it as one more Fuck YOU to Ayn Rand and her base, I didn't pay to see it, so there should have been no-pain-no-gain. But oh, there was pain, so much. I don't fall asleep during movies, just because I'm sensitive to the light and sound of a movie theater since there's so much of it. Considering that this is, as my wife described, like 'watching Nazi-paint dry', I tried, oh lawd I tried, to fall asleep during this. Because it really is, without a doubt one of the dullest of the piece-of-shittiest shits I've seen in a while.

But, Jack, you're asking, what is the movie "about"? Um... let's see ::glances up at plot synopsis:: it's basically about a couple of rich fucks who run a railroad company in, um, five years from now(!) who keep hearing about some guy named John Galt who is supposed to be the Hero of Capitalism or some such crap, and then there's a new metal for a railroad and the really boring day-time soap opera chick comes on as one of the Taggart siblings to be the Heroic Capitalist Avenger or whatever and throw some water at a guy's face and look not angry and oh no I've let this be a run on sentence.... 

An actor so clueless he has to read from his script while the film is shooting.

I so couldn't give a shit reallly to even explain it. It's basically watching the upper echelons of society- those with a lot of money who act like heroes because they are making tons of money for themselves while the 'villains' are those dirty, dirty liberals who are smoking fat cigars and making big fat deals behind or just out in the open of closed doors. Supposedly society has collapsed, sorta, gas prices have skyrocketed (past what it is now, like $37 per gallon or some such malarkey), and all the BIG drama takes place in office rooms and fancy restaurants and nice houses and once or twice in "actual" places like a subway terminal or a street. 


We become aware of some vast conspiracy that has businessmen being abducted by some shadowy figures in the street (and what blandly shadowy figures they are, a first in cinematic history I think)... this SHOULD be one of the creepy and memorable parts of the movie, even an unintentionally funny part, but the only chuckle is at a stupid freeze-frame in black and white with TYPED-OUT LETTERS done for the person on screen.

And in this scene we find out the molecular weight of the substance WhoGivesaShit

I don't want to under-sell it - it's biggest crime is being indifferent, to itself and to its audience. If I were an Ayn Rand fan (and if I ever become one I'm certain you'll be the first to know you bastards) I would be offended by this movie. I didn't get a sense of any kind of political or philosophical conviction past... I dunno, making lots of money and screwing poor people over once or twice? I guess that's the libertarian and/or "Tea-Party" ideal, but it's such poorly handled propaganda. Where's Leni Riefenstahl when you need her, or (arguably) Michael Moore? Hell, when it comes to a cult - and make no mistake, the "Randians" are often called as such - how about Battlefield Earth? At least that has Travolta hamming it up like it's Christmas time and the pig's just aching to be sliced. 

That's another thing I should note, what contributes to the dull sense of life slipping ever so quickly away from the film, is the acting, or non-acting really. While there are some professionals here, people like Michael Lerner and Jon Polito, which just made me pine to go back and watch Coen brothers movies, and other somewhat recognizable character actors ("Big Love" from House and that one Winkies dream dude from Mulholland Drive), none fare well here because the director, some uber-HACK who mostly moonlights on WB tripe like One Tree Hill, doesn't even give the character players a bone to chew on. 


"Star" Taylor Schilling though is the most eggregious offence here and one of the main things that had me walk out. Her eyes, dead eyes, like a doll's eyes, do nothing with a character who is supposed to have gumption and determination and... SOMETHING, I dunno! Even when she does emote it's that kind of empty style that would make Andy Warhol cringe and sends mothers weeping with their children in agony. Her paired with the equally woodboardwood Grant Bowler and Matthew Marsden (I don't think I got to see the director in action as the much touted Galt by the time I left) it just gets worse and worse.

"Anything wrong?" "Oh, no, I would be trying to sneak a peek up your skirt but I'm sure it's just as boring as your face."

And sure, maybe by now you might be thinking 'but, Jack, come on, how can you review it without having seen the whole movie? You might be missing on some of the most brilliant political commentary you've ever seen!' Well, first of all, in that case, why were you reading this you trolling piece of garbage. And secondly, I'm not Roger Ebert and I don't need to do a kind of deal like he did with that one movie where he watched 8 minutes and wrote his review (do forgive me for not remembering the title). 


I gave it a solid chance, and I tried to get into it, even as a "bad" movie. But there's *nothing* there. It's a soulless, empty excursion into a very bad American mindset in the writing that is surrounded by the kind of direction that is bad on a Last Airbender level. It's pseudo-science fiction, or rather for people who think that brilliant science fiction is surrounded by offensively tasteless philosophy that is at best dated and at worst without any empathy.   It also kills you realizing what better things you could be doing, how you can actually be having real substantive arguments or reading stuff online or at home or watching a solid political or philosophical thing somewhere. It's pandering tripe of the lowest order that commits the ultimate sin, as Frank Capra would say, of boring the audience.

But hey, it's a resounding success according to FOX News, so all is right with the world! :D   And hey, can't wait for part 2 AND 3, especially that SEVENTY PAGE MONOLOGUE FROM JOHN GALT TRANSFERRED TO FILM....



>:(