Hiair

Beautiful art direction, okay acting, but disgusting manipulative MARXIST script that's really shows the region and time when this movie came out; spoiler alert for the people in the 1920's, communism/socialism never worked.

The film is against capitalism and technological advancement and it makes that clear since the very beginning by presenting those elements as a "gift from the Devil" to our protagonist in the shape of a machine that produces unlimited energy; but the film has one fatal flaw, it shoots itself on the foot with how it presents its own message. It completely fails to show communists/socialists on a positive light, though it thinks it does.

The world in the film is divided in two sides, the one that embraced capitalism and technological advancement, and the other smaller one that embraced communism/socialism and rejected the technological advance.

All the characters in the communist/socialist side of the world are conformists that make sure that everyone else is a conformist too, or else they cast them away; as they did to our protagonist; a miner, casted away by his own wife once he wanted to start using his gift to IMPROVE THE LIVING CONDITIONS of humanity, including his own and hers. After the capitalist side prospered for 20 years the socialist side became more selfish, resentful, jealous, and entitled. They had the oportunity to be part of the rest of the world but they rejected their offer because the technological advancement would cost them their job at the coil mine, despite they were clearly tired of it since the very beginning and thought they were being exploited.

*Tip for communist/socialist writers: if you think is wrong to replace human workers with machines, don't show them working on DANGEROUS and MISERABLE conditions that they don't want to go through neither.

So, after 20 years of misery in the communist side, they realized that they needed that technology after all, but they couldn't pay for it as the rest of the world did because they were 20 years behind them; echonomically and technologicaly, thanks to their choice of rejecting it when it was offered in the first place, so now they demanded it for FREE. They called our protagonist "selfish" and said that he had the "obligation" of giving it not only to them but to everyone for free, and if he didn't give it for FREE they threatened him with destroying it so NO ONE in the world could have it. Are they suppossed to be the movie's """"heroes"""?

Meanwhile during the whole film, nobody in the "capitalist" side of the world looked poor, nor miserable, nor being exploited, nor being exploiting the communist side of the world, everyone looked happy and prospering. And the protagonist who is the main representative of capitalism remained rational and positive until almost the very end, because that hit the fan once the communists/socialists took over.

Oh, and in another attempt to make people believe that capitalism is synonym with blind greed on top of "evil"; his son wanted to kill him in order to inherit the energy business and be able to get in bed with a gold digger that put him that condition. That's not capitalism, but if we want count it as such that makes one bad capitalist character against millions of good ones, versus hordes and hordes of destructive communists/socialists, so no check mate for their advocates.

There are two main messages that this film communicates regardless were intended or not: 1- Power and progress are "evil".

2 - Don't seek to improve your own life or the life of others, just wait until others improve their their lives, then take away the product of their effort and somehow that would make you a "better person".

I only give 1 star to movies I think should be destroyed and erased from memory, but this one gets 2 because of its pretty art department, and because it needs to be preserved as part of an embarrasing part of history that needs to be studied in order to never repeat it.

The lesson to learn: Political/ideological propaganda in entertainment ages as good as milk ages in a broken refrigerator.

PS. If you watched Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" you can see this movie had a strong influence in his script; which is arguably as bad as this one.

Adding "A fable" to your title is won't make the audience turn of their brain, nor it is a justification for your mess. Adding "a filmmaker ahead of his time" to a trailer you cut yourself is utter narcissim.

Shame on Coppola for stealing Neil Breen's signature style and forgetting that people watch Breen's movies for the polar opposite reasons we watch Coppola's movies.

Megalopolis is the most expensive NEIL BREEN movie not directed by Neil Breen because it is; at all levels, exactly the movie that he would make having a $120,000,000 budget.

But while Breen's movies are fun because they are "so bad they are good, Megalopolis is so bad that just makes you cringe and constantly check your watch.

If you have seen any of Breen's movies you know exactly why Megalopolis fits perfectly in his repertoire; all of them are vanity projects that act as monuments to its creator's ego, they are made to PREACH first and second to entertain, they are full of artsy fartsy pretentious mumble jumble pretending to be "profound" dialogue, artsy farsy editing, inconsistencies of all kinds possible, cheesy and tacky visuals, and have no restrains with self indulgence.

Lets face it, at this point in Francis Ford Coppola career it is clear that The Godfather part 1 and 2, and Bram Stoker's Dracula were lucky accidents because the list of bad movies in his filmography doubles the list of good ones which are arguably 3 or 4. Perhaps he expent too much time with his daughter Sophia during the last decades writing the script that he forgot that movies need to have a STORY. More than a script that thing felt like a bunch of notes and quotations taken from way too many different sources pasted together with scotch tape in a book that got so fat that he needed to continue pasting the notes on the cover and the back, and that's what he shot.

"Why cant a movie like this be made?" He has asked in many of his interviews; clearly because many people told him not to make it, or at least not with THAT "SCRIPT". This is why: MOVIES DON'T WORK LIKE THAT. It's not the first time a movie bombs for the same reasons this one did and he must know it because we have had plenty of famous gigantic bombs in the history of cinema that share the same traits with his. It's not that this kind of movies can or "can't" be made, everything can be made, specially today, EVERYTHING, but being able to do anything means you should? Thats what people tried to tell him; "we know you can do it Francis, but perhaps you shouldnt". "Perhaps you should do a second draft before you shoot this script". To which he probably said "I made the Godfather". It ended there but they should have told him "But this is nothing like it; its not even like an actual movie".

As he says; "film makers should make the movies they want to make", YES, of course, everyone agrees with that; including Neil Breen and TOMMY WISEAU, if you don't want to make them don't make them because that lack of desire shows as much as the passion behind it does. But if that movie you as filmmaker wanted to make is pure $#!+, that's entirely your fault because you had all the freedom im the world to do WHATEVER YOU WANTED and this is what you came up with. Who did you wanted to satisfy? The audience? Or just yourself?

6 LESSONS to get from this "movie" for new filmmakers and older ones that seem to have forgotten them:

1- SHOW, DON'T TELL.

2- SHOW, DON'T TELL.

3- SHOW, DON'T TELL.

4- SHOW only something if that "TELLS" SOMETHING.

5- If you are making a movie for yourself, to please only yourself, watch it at your house, by yourself, don't put it in theaters.

6- MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: Not because you can do something you should do it.

*Bonus lesson: Listen to others' advice, DO NOT EAT MUSHROOMS while you write, not even $120,000,000 can make a good movie from a crappy script.

When exactly everyone lowered their basic standards to underground levels? Tell Bryan Cranston's dying wife that the world will be safe because a giant super hero monkey with a transformers arm will team up with a caped crusder lizard to kung fu fight monsters, and the earth is hollow and has a giant monkey city in it, then come back and tell me how well that fits together as part of the same "universe". "Monkey hits lizard, good , don't say otherwise or me throw poop at you!" If that's your level of intelligence you will love it, but don't watch it or you will get worse. Please don't defend this movie by asking us to "TURN OUR BRAIN OFF", if that's your defense you already lost the deabate, why don't you ask the writers to turn their brain on? "FUN" is not synonymous of "STUPID", it wasn't, it doesn't have to be, and we already passed that, oh that's right "-1" wasn't Hollywood... here we go again... OF COURSE ITS FAIR TO COMPARE IT WITH "-1", every movie with dinosaurs is still compared to Jurassic Park, people can compare it with Barbie or the Smurfs if they want, but this one doesn't even stand a comparison with GODZILLA 2014 which is part of the NOT MARVEL "universe" it belongs, and its the one has to be mandatory compared to. Don't turn off your brain for Hollywood again, enough is enough. This movie is to GODZILLA 2014 what BATMAN AND ROBIN was to BATMAN 1989 AND BATMAN RETURNS or what Moonraker was to James Bond. They started as something believable and serious and someone else turned them later into goofy cartoons. Being a fan of GODZILLA and tokusatsu cinema and tv doesn't mean that I cannot distinguish quality from trash, and as a healthy fan I always want QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY, I don't consume and blindly deffend everything because it says "Godzilla" on it. Yes, the Showa era exists, Toho is embarrased of it, any fan knows that, do you? They consider it as the lowest point of the franchise and that's why Godzilla has never been that goofy; at least in Japan, ever since. BUT This is NOT a Showa era Godzilla movie, its supposed ti part of the serious american Godzilla 2014 version, which exists because the American 1998 version was so terrible and goofy that they decided to scratch all sequels and reboot it in a serious direction with the 2014 version. But 1998's was more believable than this new one, why is 1998 not equaly praised? The Showa era; as goofy as it was, was its OWN thing(mess) separatted from the original's canon, Godzilla has been reseted in Japan at least 3 times, but this ultra goofy american cartoon is NOT its own thing, it is supposed to be a CONTINUATION of a movie where Bryan Cranston, crying with a broken soul, had to sacrifice his wife and colleagues to save the city and his son, and he had to say goodbye while she was dying in front of him, a movie where they tried to give weight and REALISM to a creature of more than 300m height and thousands of tons in weight, where they tried to put on screen the consequences of its destruction and existence in the REAL world. That was the selling point, realism, that was what was promised to the fans, it delivered that promise but not as well as GODZILLA-1 did, yet it was a stept on the right direction, how did we get from that 2014 movie to this? How is that a progress? Goofy movies are fun and have their space in cinema, a bigger place than what they deserve, no doubt of that, I love "so bad are good movies" as much as the next man BUT.....BUT.....but I repeat, that is when they ARE THEIR OWN THING and not a continuation of something that was relatively realistic and serious. And this one goes an extra mille triplying down with stupidity which makes it insulting to even kids intellligence. After so many times complaining about studios telling us to "turn off our brain" when did you, the raging fans decided to obey and celebrate that? Have some integrity! GODZILLA-1 and everything from Nolan prove that movies can be intelligent and entertaining at the same time again, no excuse! Specially GODZILLA-1 reminded us 4 important things: 1 - You can have an intelligent, engaging, and even inspiring story and visual spectacle at the same time. Thay they cannot exist together is an old lazy writers' lie.

2 - People do like human characters, when they are well writen and important for the plot. These movies dont work without them, they are the ones that suffer the consequences of the destruction and as the audirnce we need that.

3 - Millions of dollars on visual efects are worth nothing if points 1 and 2 are not checked.

4 - Not everything has to ripp off of MARVEL.

If you are a filmmaker who loves bad dumb movies create your own franchise and quit destroying others with continuations that are not even part of the same genre! Does Jar Jar Binks fits in The Godfather's "universe" (everything has to be called a universe now, thanks to Marvel)? Cake on face jokes? I didn't think so neither.

IF you as most fans have complained of movies for being shallow, dumb and for treating the audience as "stupid cattle", but you deffend this movie precisely for being all that, don't you dare to trash Batman and Robin, Transformers, anything from Michael Bay, Uwe Boll, Fast and Furious, Jurassic World, sharknado, Birdemic, The Room, again, because that's called DOUBLE STANDARDS. TURN YOUR BRAIN BACK ON. This movie is terrible and that's NOT A GOOD THING.