Sincere question: did it work?

I don't know how these movies could possibly 'work'.

Atlas Shrugged is an extremely long, meandering, dull book with preposterously long lectures from characters. One moment in particular I can recall from the book is, I think, Francisco's enormous rant while at a party. As if everyone wouldn't have walked off after the first couple of pages worth of one-sided blathering.

Aside from her hilariously overdone evil/lazy "bad guy" characters, who remind me of something out of a WWII propaganda poster, I don't see how any of it would translate well to movie format.

I doubt it. I read the book, which was overly long and really dragged in sections, and only watched the first two movies to see what kind of job they did. I just put the 3rd in my netflix queue for completion sake.
I'm generally conservative in my political views and thought the movies sucked. I highly doubt anyone that didn't already lean conservative would watch all of them or change their views due to them. They might watch the first just to see what it's about.

I had not read the book, but just finished the third movie. I felt all the movies were heavy-handed and extremely unrealistic. Some lines were laughable, to be honest. However, I really enjoyed the first movie, but the other two went downhill and got far preachier.

I was somewhat familiar with Rand's philosophy and had read the Fountainhead, but not Atlas Shrugged. I have now seen all three movies without having read the book. When I started watching movie 2, I became very confused because different actors were playing the roles and I was disoriented. However, I pretty much expected a new group when I rented movie 3.

I didn't think the acting was good in any of them but I finished all three. The third was a little better because I thought it dealt with the philosophy better.

My views did not change at all. I have always been interested in other cultures and belief systems, and that includes other's philosophies as well. I just like to try to understand how others look at the world and why they look at it that way. I have read some background on Rand, and I think that Rand's experiences while a teenager had a huge influence on her views on the world - all the wealth of her successful hardworking father was taken away in Russia during the Bolchevik revolution and that it broke his spirit -- I think it is enormously interesting how she translated this into a philosophy in her writings.