Megalopolis

Megalopolis (2024)

47% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 256 reviews)

Runtime: 138 of the longest minutes of my life

"Directed by": Apparently, a pod person that replaced Francis Ford Coppola!

Starring: Many famous faces who I felt embarrassed for being in this disaster. Yes, even Jon Voight and Ol' Shia.

From: Coppola's own company

I take no joy in writing such a negative review for a big-budget modern film which is decidedly not “Modern Hollywood.” Some won’t have any joy in this being a longer than usual review, but I need to give context and try to explain in a non-spoiler way why I loathed this film. It has nothing to do with my current concerns, re: Hurricane Milton likely coming my way on Wednesday. I haven’t viewed much of Coppola past Apocalypse Now as a lot of it is either not of interest to me or just isn’t the masterpieces he made during the 70’s.

In short, this felt exactly like the sort of avant-garde and arthouse crap I avoid like it has COVID-19; the multiple comparisons I’ve seen to Southland Tales is a guarantee that Southland Tales will never be experienced by me. It’s also been compared to other things (like “80’s Godard”) that people should not expect to see me review, like, ever.

Beforehand, I had no idea what my reaction would have been. I didn’t have the time to see it until last night, so by then the well had been poisoned a little because all the negative reviews were seen… even if I didn’t read any of them in-depth. However, it couldn’t be avoided, the comparisons I saw some make to various directors/films that are avoided by me, for good reason. Regrettably, the movie lost me almost right away and it could just never recover.

The general idea of comparing our modern world to Ancient Rome has been made often, but OK. Creating a New Rome that’s a reskinned New York City is odd… however, what sinks what is in essence an uncomplicated story is rather numerous. A LOT happens w/ the plot, meaning that there are too many unresolved subplots to count. Each main player acts like they are in a different story—many of the performances are just garish & OOT. I was constantly baffled to the point of having a splitting headache by the end.

It was a whole collection of bizarre, undercooked ideas just thrown onto the screen. Why was a key item called MEGALON? Is Coppola a Godzilla fan?! Why is there an entire monologue from Hamlet spoken when it doesn’t happen again? Why do a pair of characters suddenly speak two lines of dialogue in Latin then revert back to English? Why does Adam Driver have the power to (redacted) when it was inconsequential to the story? Why was I supposed to have a certain opinion of Driver’s character when the movie did nothing to inform me that I should feel this way? Why did the movie pull a NEIL BREEN and have characters repeat words or phrases for no reason whatsoever?

Many “whys” could be asked and should have been asked. Then there’s the main plot and how baffling that is alone.

Megalopolis does have some nice visuals. I’m not talking about the jaundiced look it has too often, to steal a line. The odd score I usually did like. Let’s see… Laurence Fishburne does drive Driver around in a SWEET black Citroen DS. Otherwise—not too many compliments can be given by me. It was that agonizing a watch; no wonder many in the general public threw up their hands and walked out-I almost did myself!

I also take no joy in eviscerating someone’s passion project-one that they’ve had as a dream for literally decades, & felt so strong that he spent an obscene amount of his own money to fulfill that dream. Yet, the film totally missed the mark for my tastes. For those few that are able to get on its wavelength… God Bless You.