Best movie of this year hands down!

Am I Missing Something?

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film gives the impression that it's written by someone who's never been exposed to but always fantasised about class. It's then acted out in a spree of self-marginalising desperation of contrived spite for all humanity as an attempt to appeal to those who like to imagine themselves unrewarded heroes and yet-proclaimed masters of society by embracing such a caricature ideology... well, perhaps after all those viewers simply enjoy being assholes and had no further intellectual pursuits in deriving solace from these plot lines disguised as some embarrassing screen fiasco. Doomed from the inception and no increase in budget (which indeed looked very small and misspent) could salvage this train wreck. The change in actors only made it look more miserable.

Sure I'm not an Ayn Rand sycophant. Ayn Rand had wanted to write a book where the rich went on strike. Well it seemed like a childish (no childlike) premise from the start. But let's leave all that behind. At it's core, it's an apocalyptic future America. That's every other movie nowadays anyways.They have recast all the roles. Samantha Mathis is now Dagny Taggart. She's a capable actress who could hold the movie together. The scale of the movie has marginally improved from the first installment. There is still too much talking, too much posturing, and not enough action. It's as if the filmmakers want to explain philosophy rather than make a good story.And there is too much that screams 1950s. How puritanical do you have to be to sign away your pride and joy to preserve your lover's sexual reputation? This and many other little things demand a rewrite.And this whole thing of refusing to sell steel to the government. It makes Rearden look petty and silly rather than a Real Capitalist. Isn't capitalism dependent on the philosophy of "Money Rules All"? Capitalism shouldn't be selective. I'd rather have the government jackboot their way into the factory. It would make more sense for the story.

It has been so long since I read the book. I am sure there are legitimate complaints of how the story line does not follow the book-just as is the case in 99% of all movies. Whether or not the movie followed the book exactly does not make it good or bad for most entertainment purposes.I am not surprised that the movie is unpopular with people who dislike the Libertarian philosophy. It's almost funny to see them (including some critics) write that it is among the worst movies they ever saw. Actually, if most of these people were capable of putting aside their political and philosophical prejudices, they probably would rate the movie mediocre at worst and many would rate it better. Like John Stossel once remarked about someone calling his quite enlightening show the worst show on television..."The worst? Really???" This was not a book or movie made for entertainment purposes except to entertain the mind. It is a work of philosophy set to get one thinking of the virtues of selfishness and how natural it is for humans to form symbiotic relationships to celebrate that virtue.Still, I enjoyed the artwork, architecture, fashion and even the acting. Better in part two than one, in fact. I have seen poor acting before and there was, quite simply, NONE in this movie. Add to that the fact that the movie had not one dumb or corny moment in it-quite a feat for a movie these days. Unless you are one of those people who thinks everything you disagree with is dumb or corny.

Acting: Uniformly mediocre, with Jason Beghe's steely Hank Rearden being the only (mildly) bright spot. Teller's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo is neat, and Robert Picardo, Paul McCrane and Michael Gross all play bureaucrat versions of their famous TV characters. Nobody else registers in the slightest. The cast is completely different from Part I, which is almost unprecedented in a sequel filmed so soon after the original (the similarly cruddy Sting II is the only other example I could think of). The only saving grace was that Part I's cast was so mediocre in itself, I couldn't remember any of the performances, so it didn't seem jarring.Production design and special effects: Some of the most obvious CGI you'll ever see. Also, the occasionally interesting "Bioshock"- influenced architecture of the first film is gone, probably because they halved the budget for this one.Dialogue: As with other Ayn Rand films I've seen (Atlas Shrugged Part I and The Fountainhead), completely inane. I will say that Beghe delivers the standard Rand sound bites with a straight face better than anyone before (even Gary Cooper), because he so earnestly sells what he's saying.Plotting: Once again, Rand's inability to deal with the real world shows itself. Everyone is either a misunderstood saint or an eeeeeeeeevil bureaucratic caricature. The US government in this movie calmly delivers edicts that even Kim il-Sung and Karl Marx would find ridiculous, and anyone thinking of the public good for even an instant is derided as a misguided fool or worse. Meanwhile, Francisco d'Ancona blows up his mines, and we're supposed to admire him for this. Or something. And the revealed origin of the phrase "Who is John Galt?" makes its constant repetition even less plausible. It says a lot when Sean Hannity (!) is arguably this film's moral center.To summarize: Who is John Galt? A complete sociopath, from the looks of it.