1) It's...adequate. Rather like my reaction to the book - a blend of truly exciting woman against the world and mystery thriller with the most excruciatingly black and white philosophizing for well over half the word count.
2) The acting is okay - I was hoping for something a bit more commanding from Dagny, but I'm not sure what performance I think might have worked - and the actors weren't helped by the rather less than sparkly dialogue (very reminiscent, again, to that of the book).
3) While the cinematography is not brilliant, it is very colorful and enjoyable, with some nice compositions and lighting. Also not too much handheld indulgence. Helps the film avoid showing its budget. And the vistas, enhanced I assume with CGI trains and bridges, are quite engaging.
4) Unsurprisingly, they made the sex scenes, which really seem to indicate a sort of fetishizing of sex as assault (however mutually enjoyable) basically just the same romantic, slow, emphasizing kissing and PG-13 head framed shots. Part of me is relieved - the sex scenes were very annoying in the book - but it does seem kind of cynical to make it so tame.
5) For all my annoyance with the characters who play on emotions with equal parts earnest speechifying and cynical stock tropes, the ending was quite exciting and moving. My complaints about Dagny's acting were lessened considerably by her performance in the final scene.
Makes me wonder about the next two planned films. The media surrounding the film has been bizzarely polarized around politics. No, the film's no masterpiece. But it's also no worse than many other films which are critically acclaimed - and a good sight better than most blockbusters with 10 times its budget. The cast and crew have been very quiet - perhaps because they're not getting paid a lot to do publicity. I hope they all come back and do the other parts - it is an exciting story, and since they cut a lot of the speechifying (as annoying as the bits they left in are, it's quite admirable how they've trimmed), the other bits should be just as engaging...though I'm not necessarily looking forward to the final speech by the mysterious hero...
Not as enjoyable as Source Code (my favorite film of the past two months, I think), but I liked it. Despite disagreeing with the politics.
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