Megalopolis

Full disclosure: This film is a disaster of epic proportions-an absolute train wreck that careens off the tracks, crashes, and then somehow sets itself on fire. It's so bad, it's almost brilliant, the kind of so-awful-it's-genius nightmare that future cult fans will rave about. And you know what? I respect the hell out of Coppola for it. The guy is a cinematic legend who just decided to throw all caution (and coherence) to the wind and go full mad scientist on this. It's a glorious, unfiltered mess from the mind of a genius who clearly stopped caring about what anyone thinks. Bravo, you magnificent lunatic! 👏🏻

"Megalopolis" is a film I wanted to like, primarily because it's an incredibly expensive indie project, written, produced, financed, and directed by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola-an auteur who has been planning this work for 40 years and loves it so much that he personally rated it 10/10 on the film platform Letterboxd. Moreover, the experience of sitting in a nearly empty IMAX theater with just a few others added to the atmosphere... However, aside from Adam Driver's Oscar-worthy performance and the stunning visual frames that looked beautiful on the massive screen, nothing else in this film is worth praising.

The plot follows the genius scientist Cesar, inventor of the revolutionary material "Megalon," with which he plans to build a utopian city of the future-"Megalopolis." This is one of the film's central themes-obsession with perfection in a world and society far from it. Envy, jealousy, greed, and the lust for power are other themes that shape the essence of this work. Coppola doesn't shy away from weaving in political commentary as well as reflections on human existence.

When I reflect on the film's themes, one might think this is a good film. On the contrary, all of these themes are destroyed by narrative chaos, which in my opinion stems from the director's pretentious ambition to present an unprecedented 'megalomaniac' work of art. The editing and narrative are disjointed-the film jumps from scene to scene with no coherence, which became tiresome after just fifteen minutes. By the midpoint, I had completely lost interest in the story and was simply waiting for it to end.

Even though most of the cast is well-known, it's difficult to connect with any of the characters-most are shallow, and some are entirely unnecessary. The only character I connected with was Cesar, thanks to Adam Driver's brilliant performance. His ability to convey Cesar's mania, dialogue, and emotions is likely the reason I stayed engaged at all, rather than the depth of the character itself. The dialogue is mixed-sometimes brilliant, sometimes dull-which made the experience quite uneven.

The cinematography is excellent, and had Coppola focused primarily on this element, this could have been an extraordinary film.

In conclusion, I can say that due to its impressive cinematography, I can't consider "Megalopolis" a bad film, but because of its awful narrative structure, I also can't recommend it to anyone. It's disjointed, unsure of which themes to focus on, and unclear about what it truly wants to convey. Uncertain in its very purpose.

It's the huge go for broke swing everyone said it was, and an immensely interesting mess. For everything that works in Megalopolis, there's something that doesn't. Parts are very creative and unlike anything else, and then long stretches pass that are utterly boring. It's 138 minutes long but feels like it exceeds the three-hour mark. Whether that makes it feel appropriately epic or too often dull will probably depend on the viewer.

It's also the kind of movie where I'm not sure overanalysing will help. Coppola is trying to say so much in one film, and a good part of it comes out nonsensical as a result. There were a few points during the film where I wondered if it was all some practical joke. It might mean a lot to him, or maybe only parts do and the rest of the time, he's laughing at us.

Somehow, all at once, I'm disappointed, exhausted, confused, and impressed. There's a certain balance here with the entertaining and boring. Visuals that look striking alongside parts that are visually garish. It's a movie that film buffs will argue about and remember while 99% of the population will continue to live their lives in blissful ignorance of its existence.

I can't quite decide whether it would be better to have be among the blissful many or the baffled 1%. I can offer no advice to anyone else who's considering giving it 138 minutes of their finite time. I'm glad I saw it and I also feel it was a bit of a waste of time.

On one hand, this film has some interesting ideas and visuals, but some ideas never evolve, and some visuals don't look good.

It's challenging to understand what Coppola's intention was with this film. It seems like he chose not to focus too much on characters but rather on themes. However, some scenes suggest that the audience should feel empathy for the characters, but one simply can't. One reason for that is the pacing of this film; it somehow manages to be fast, yet feel slow, and that might be because some scenes are dull. If we remove all the misleading character development, we are left with misleading idea development. Megalopolis bombards you with interesting ideas, but because there are quite a few of them, none of them evolves into a solid conclusion. As I already mentioned, it's hard to see where Coppola was going with all of this.

If his intention was to go against the classical narrative structure and challenge viewers with a different type of storytelling, then that didn't work either. Some scenes contain clichés, and the overall structure feels like a mix of 50s to 90s scenery. One interesting thing the movie does frequently is plant a seed that sometimes does not grow-it stays in that scene, and then we move to the next one. This method of storytelling is misleading and confusing for most audiences, and it probably would work better if this technique had a solid foundation throughout the whole film. But it simply does not feel right.

David Lynch once said that you can make any film, any art the way you want, as long as it feels right. His films are stranger and more difficult to understand than Megalopolis, yet when you watch Lynch's work, you don't feel misled-everything feels right, no matter how strange it is. Megalopolis sometimes feels right, sometimes it doesn't.

Megalopolis is a good example of how the director's stylistic touch matters to the look of the movie. The cinematography of this film was done by the same person who shot The Master. Yet this film feels like any expensive commercial shot today-too vivid, too warm, too basic.

I will definitely rewatch this film in the future, all jokes aside. This film has a shtick to it that I didn't quite get the first time watching. Overall, it's a bit sad that this is Coppola's last film, but I'm sure he has no regrets making it. After all, this is the guy who made Apocalypse Now, and I will respect him forever for his contribution to American cinema.

The cinematography was a spectacle for sure. The special effects however, were either a strong compliment to the shot sequences or embarrassing to look at. I did enjoy the films dream aesthetic, but the dialogue was either cartoonishly hard to keep up with or felt like it served no purpose for the plot/characters.

My favorite part of the film was definitely the Virgin Pledge sequence. It also did nothing for the story, however, the song was actually good and the visual delivery was pleasing to the eyeballs.

Overall, this film is definitely not for most people. I am embarrassed that I liked it. It's a terrible movie that I enjoyed for the outlandish performances that gave me a good laugh.