Phil and Starchild and I saw ASP3 last night. (I didn't see Aubrey, who had signed up.) I thought it was substantially better than Part 2, and would encourage people to see it. Casting Randian heroes is pretty much impossible, since it takes intelligence and character to play intelligence and character, and nobody is going to accept Anthony Hopkins as John Galt. But the current cast did at least a passing job. And some of the villains, especially Cuffy Meigs and Floyd Ferris, were very well done. The cinematography is again beautiful, though it's disconcerting to see Galt's Gulch as a pastiche of Sequoia and Switzerland. Some small deviations from the book I approved of: The statements about power sounded a little more anarchist than Objectivist, and they took Eddie Willers back to the Gulch. There are also a few cute touches, including cameos by Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, which are actually integral to the plot.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the movie review. Glad you enjoyed ASP3 as an improvement over Part 2. Pretty good to have an Objectivist main-stream movie -- with Ron Paul in it, no less! Indeed Aubrey missed the fun, since he was called out of town on an emergency. I would have enjoyed the company of you all, but movies are not for me. The last one I saw was "My Little Pony," when I was drafted to take kids to see it.
Marcy