My thoughts:
While it was partly destined to be more interesting than the original because the events which occur at that point in the book are more interesting, I have to say that I thought that as a whole the movie was a lot worse based on its own merits than its predecessor. The shortcomings of the film were innumerable; the plot was disconnected, the CGI was awful and yet they continually drew attention to it, the best thing you could say about the actress who replaced Dagny was that she was good at looking sad even though neither her appearance nor her acting style in any way represented the Ayn Rand character, some of the events were just plain untrue to the book, the script was lacking, and the character relationships, possibly the highlight of the book just were not there. Perhaps all of this would have been forgivable if the movie had actually been able to capture Rand's philosophy, but it just plain didn't.
I have to say though that I didn't think that it was a bad movie. It had all of the elements of a bad movie. The the CGI usage which was slightly over b-movie level, combined with Dagny's acting could have literally made it a cult film just because of how bad it was, but the film doesn't achieve anywhere near this level of bad. The film was fun. Libertarians will get a kick out of it, partly because of the constant presence of protestors obviously based off of OWS, partly because of the "bad guys" who so perfectly resemble every libertarian stereotype of liberal statists ever. There's pretty much a "council of doom" scene where all the bad guys were talking at a table about how awful capitalism is and then suddenly the president flashes on screen and pretty much says "It's time to annihilate all freedom for the public good" and goes on to pass a proposition that destroys the market economy. This sort of light and fun conflict combined with a constant series of events which are at least entertaining and dialogue which is is sometimes just short of perfect in terms of either summing up the attitudes of statists, or which is just plain hilarious at least makes Atlas Shrugged Part II "The Chick Flick of Libertarianism". Fun, not serious. It's also nice to see that Rand's philosophy isn't entirely gone, there's a nice bit of objectivist pride in one's own actions, and although Francisco's money speech is swept aside Rearden's court speech is pretty good.
What I actually found most interesting about the movie was a preview at the theater I saw it at:
This looks legitimately interesting and quite possibly holding a more pro-industrialist take on events.... Seems like it has a lot potential to me, if not from a libertarian perspective, then at least in terms of being a promising show and spawning interesting discussion.
Thoughts on the movie or the above show?
I haven't seen it. It looks atrocious.
^^^
This.
Agreed. The production value and the action left me waiting for Jar Jar Binx to be introduced as a major character.
And how anti-climactic was Fransisco D'Anconia's money speech?
To me, the best part about seeing this movie was the coming attraction for the film Hitchcock, which is about an excellent director not screwing up a good novel (Psycho), which is apparently harder than it looks.
Seriously, and Anthony Hopkins is Hitchock! :D
@ QuisCustodiet
Now THIS is a movie I would want to see.
Holy crap, they were able to finance a sequal?!?!
I had no idea.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle