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.
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.