Atlas Shrugged: Part III

Following on from Part II of the series, Dagny Taggart has at last has met John Galt. He and all the missing entrepreneurs, academics etc are living in a secret location. Dagny now has to make a choice: remain with the intellectuals or head back into the world where the government is oppressing its own people and stifling innovation and entrepreneurship.

After the first two films in the series I wasn't expecting much from this but wanted to see how the story ends. The film lived up to my expectations.

As before, the story is quite clumsy, character engagement is close to non-existent and the performances aren't the greatest but the themes are interesting, relatable and supportable. Continuity from the previous film is also a bit suspect

On that note, once again, the entire cast has been changed, diminishing any character familiarity or engagement. Why do that - a three film-series with common characters but entirely different casts for each film? Would it have been more expensive to sign actors to three-film deals? Makes for some weird character (non-) continuity, e.g. Dagny Taggart was played by 27-year-old Taylor Schilling in Part I, 42-year-old Samantha Mathis in Part II and now 37-year-old Laura Regan in Part III. So how old is her character?

In some ways the cast change is a positive as the actors are better than those in Part II but that wasn't difficult to achieve.

There are some broader positives though. Part III does tie up reasonably well, though with some degree of deliberate open-endedness. The anti-government, pro-capitalism themes of the first two films are now even stronger here and are well illustrated.

As was also the case with the first two films, the themes and broad storyline are very good, just a pity the execution is so mediocre.