Megalopolis

Megalopolis is at once one of the least-accessible films of the year, but the sheer depth and insanity of its accomplishment is one we may never see again.

Megalopolis might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy every single batshit second of it.

At the end of the day, for better and for worse, in awe and in tired confusion, Megalopolis is a garish wonder to behold.

It’s windy and overstuffed, frequently baffling and way too talky, quoting Hamlet and The Tempest, Marcus Aurelius and Petrarch, ruminating on time, consciousness and power to a degree that becomes ponderous. But it’s also often amusing, playful, visually dazzling and illuminated by a touching hope for humanity.

It's muddled in the extreme and few of its cast members make it out of the debacle unscathed, but its willful rejection of what audiences might want to see in favor of what Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make is so bold you almost have to admire it.

For me this is a passion project without passion: a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film, full of high-school-valedictorian verities about humanity’s future. It’s simultaneously hyperactive and lifeless, lumbered with some terrible acting and uninteresting, inexpensive-looking VFX work which achieves neither the texture of analogue reality nor a fully radical, digital reinvention of existence.

Megalopolis grants Coppola a dubious honor. In addition to his being the mastermind behind two of cinema's greatest achievements, he's also now the architect of one of its worst.

"We are not here to please others." A quote from Megalopolis that likely symbolized Francis Ford Coppola's motivation when he created this epic. With this project, he defied all expectations and realized an artistic dream that had occupied him for decades. He made many sacrifices to bring it to fruition. This included investing a large portion of his fortune, as no Hollywood production company was willing to finance it. But this attitude of the film industry, which has long been driven far less by artistically ambitious projects than by pure greed, did not deter Francis Ford Coppola. For this perseverance and courage, this willingness to risk damaging his reputation as a director, he deserves the highest respect and gratitude. The result is an epic full of symbolic power and profound depth. It deals with power, greed, manipulation, and the decadence of a society that resonates in both the Roman Empire and the present day. In this sense, the film can certainly be interpreted as a warning to humanity. With his late work, Francis Ford Coppola has created a great, courageous, and enduring film.

It's not as bad as people say. I think some unnecessary scenes need to be removed and it needs better CGI.

At the heart of the story of Megalopolis is the idea of ​​building a utopia, which symbolizes man's search for a perfect and flawless society. Caesar Catiline, the architect of the city, strives to create an ideal society in which justice, prosperity, and environmental sustainability are fully established. This idea examines the nature of utopias and raises philosophical questions about the real possibility of building such a society. Can human society reach perfection without contradictions and flaws, or is utopia just an unattainable dream?

I can't exactly place how I feel about Megalopolis. It's all over the place, and I can't tell what it's going for. I kept trying to adapt my perspective to better suit the movie, which is not a labor that is usually asked by media. I tried viewing it as a play, as a dream, as a look at society from a completely alienated lens, but it tries to do too many things and never quite nails anything.

In this $120 million film that looks like a 2005 Syfy original, truly delightful moments are lost in a sea of confusion and actors of the highest caliber are boxed in by the most hostile editing imaginable.