Jack Blackfire

1/10

Megalopolis is the biggest piece of horse manure ever plopped onto the big screen by a supposed 'auteur.' Francis Ford Coppola, once a legend, has seemingly thrown every ounce of his reputation into creating what can only be described as a $200 million exercise in torturing his audience. For a movie so obsessed with the concept of time, it’s an astonishing irony that Coppola chose to waste so much of it - both his own and ours. The film doesn’t merely flirt with pretension, it dives headlong into a pit of bloated, pseudo-intellectual nonsense, grasping at existentialism and philosophy like a desperate student who skimmed the reading. Each line is delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as if Coppola thought dropping random 'deep' quotes and clunky monologues could somehow mask the absolute hollowness of his vision. Instead, it’s like watching an ego trip in slow motion, the cinematic equivalent of being trapped at a dinner party where the host insists on quoting Nietzsche to show how 'profound' they are. Make no mistake, Megalopolis isn’t just bad; it’s a spectacular failure on every level - a towering, cringe-inducing monument to unchecked vanity and ambition gone haywire. If you’re looking for insight or innovation, steer clear; this movie’s biggest revelation is how even the best of reputations can be sacrificed on the altar of pretentious self-indulgence.

yellowheart

9/10

This is NOT a movie the average movie-goer (or streamer I suppose) will sit down to watch and enjoy and have a good time. Especially if American, with a lot of the sentiments in here. But regardless, it's more like an onion with so many layers, each full of a myriad references of all kinds: direct or "meta", but all of those are thought-provoking. And it's hard to actively think while trying to watch a movie, trying to watch anything, especially something like this. This is an epic, in as classic sense of the word as it can get. An epic in the form of a giant visual feast, opulent, decadent, mixing so many styles from every aspect of life (including cinema itself), throughout the history of mankind. It's not an easy watch, not something to have play in the background while doing something else. It requires attention. It needs a lot of time to just unwrap those layers, those references - and even that alone requires quite a bit of knowledge. And after that, yeah, one may start thinking about the meaning. Start having conversations, start talking about it. If there's sufficient company; alone... it's gonna be suffocating. It's also gonna need rewatching a few times. > No time to talk of people's future? Yet there's always time to convince them to use money they don't have, to buy things they don't need, to imitate people they don't like.

drbrake

1/10

The worst film I have seen in many years and not even in an enjoyable way. I understand why Coppola struggled to get this made and eventually had to fund it himself. What I can't understand is how he convinced a reasonably starry cast and crew to participate in this bilge. The acting is ridiculously mannered (Adam Driver swooping his neo-Roman cape around early on should have been a warning). It presumably was leaning in to some kind of self-parody - at least some of the actors may have thought that was what they were doing - but I shouldn't have to guess whether it was deliberate. Visuals: If good enough they might have been reward enough for me - I went to see it in IMAX for that reason) were a huge disappointment for a director with his talent - perhaps a "mere" $120m is no longer enough to afford decent CGI? Plot: I lost an hour and a half of my life waiting for the movie to finish clearing its throat and start building towards something, but I gradually realized that moment would never come despite an intrusive, plodding narration trying to explain the plot. It gestures towards grand themes (Imperial Rome and the fall of the American empire, moral decay and show biz spectacle in politics, the competition between pragmatism and utopian planning/thinking...) But when I say it was gesturing... it was really flailing its metaphorical arms around and shouting - nothing seemed to tie the strands together, and I lost interest in trying to see what he was up to. Ick: To the extent I did "understand" the themes, I found some of them quite disturbing. If Adam Driver/Cesar is supposed to be a visionary hero with big ideas for the city, based in part on Robert Moses who rebuilt New York... Robert Moses was a terrible human being. Shia LaBeof's cartoonish villain is clearly meant to be some kind of projection of moral corruption... so having him be in drag much of the movie seems wildly inappropriate for a contemporary audience. Ordinary New Yorkers have no real place in the movie and tend to be treated as more or less a baying mob - in keeping with the caricatured Roman theme but fundamentally anti-democratic. Giancarlo Esposito, the newly-elected mayor who represents democratic governance in this fable, is a cartoonish demagogue. At a meta-level - I went to an IMAX screening a few days into the theatrical run. when booking earlier in the day, there appeared to be about a dozen or so people who also had tickets... but when a friend and I arrived, it seemed most of those people didn't bother to turn up - wisely, as it turned out. My friend, who was tired, actually managed to doze off intermittently, despite the noise and spectacle unfolding on the big screen. We walked out before the end - something I generally hesitate to do but seemed the only reasonable response. There were a few points earlier in the plot when characters said things like "this makes no sense" when I should have taken their lead. In retrospect, if he had stopped working after Apocalypse Now (one of my favourite films) and The Godfather I and II, the world would not have missed much, and he could be remembered as a genius. Instead, this is a terrible end to a long decline from greatness. Avoid.

farneyboy

3/10

This is not an easily digestible movie, nor do I think is it intended to be. “Megalopolis” was produced, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which while it is probably what will draw most people to the movie, I also think that it may be one of the biggest weaknesses. Hear me out: Coppola’s best and most revered works (in my opinion) were him adapting previously written narratives: The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. His choices in casting, how he adapted the story, his cinematography, the performances he coaxed, all are deserved reasons for his awards and fan-following. But this one he alone was responsible for the story, creating the characters and their motivations, and while the cinematography and creativity were fully evident, it didn’t convince me that all the excesses were necessary to illustrate what he wanted to emphasize and it just felt to me like someone who didn’t have anybody saying “no” or giving pushback on ideas. Yes, he took some chances and and I'm not saying he has no creativity. But this movie is truly a vanity project, for better or worse. For me, it was for worse. Your motivation for watching movies may be the determining factor as to whether or not you like “Megalopolis”. If you go to be entertained, I don’t think this is it. If you go because you love certain filmmakers, consider yourself a connoisseur of cinema, feel like there are too many movies for the common person, or you like unique cinematic visions and searching for hidden subtext, this is more along your lines. I feel like this is an "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of movie. Most people will look and say, oh, there are no clothes. While others will congratulate themselves on how they are able to see just how brilliant the clothes look. Bravo to you if you could see the clothes in Megalopolis. I couldn't.

Manuel São Bento

0/10

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/megalopolis-review-admirable-ambition-meets-chaotic-execution-in-francis-ford-coppolas-epic/ "Megalopolis is an ambitious epic that attempts to examine numerous thought-provoking themes, but Coppola's vision of societal reconstruction reflects both its grandeur and the inherent flaws of its chaotic execution. Despite immersive visuals and a talented cast, the narrative becomes overloaded with metaphors and philosophical analogies, resulting in an experience that, while provocative, feels confusing and scattered. The central conflict between Cesar and Cicero offers intriguing moments, but the richness of the ideas often gets diluted by the film's excessive complexity. A frustrating disappointment that, even as the creation of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, still falls prey to the common pitfalls of contemporary cinema." Rating: C-