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I can only hope that my reputation among fellow online moviegoers isn't that of a fanboy or an overemotional child, especially considering that there are some directors, such as Coppola, who are extremely dear to my heart. I could go on about how one of my favorites, Don Bluth, only has one movie I'd give five-stars and try to use that as proof of something, but I want to make it perfectly clear: I am willing to criticize hit movies. I am willing to compliment bad movies. I say this all because Megalopolis has been the ONE movie I've been more excited about for years. I have been prepared for the idea that this could be his masterpiece or a total disaster. I've heard much of the commentary regarding this controversial CGI art gallery. And now that I've seen it, I'm ready to write my review, flesh out my final thoughts and come to a consensus.
In an alternate take on modern society, Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is an architect who can control time and is attempting to rebuild his city of New Rome into Megalopolis, a city made entirely out of his original material Megalon. While his views clash against a powerful rival, Mayor Frank Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), he develops feelings for Cicero's daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), and as well has to deal with the antics of his jealous cousin, Clodio (Shia Labeouf). In this modern Rome, Cesar becomes the victim of scandals, accusations and even violence in all of his efforts to reinvent modern society, especially from his ex-mistress, TV reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza).
Having already seen the gloriously ambitious surrealist film, The Holy Mountain, I felt that I was fully prepared for anything, be it conventional or experimental. I went into the theater with a very specific mindset: see if symbolism is telling the story. And why? Because I've heard about how confusing the visuals make it, and I wanted to see if that's what Coppola was trying to achieve. And I left the theater thinking, “What the hell were they talking about? I'm following this story just fine. The symbolism only has a say in a few scenes.” I mean, seriously. This is what it is: a few powerful people are arguing about the fate of their city while dealing with personal problems. Easy. You could make a sitcom out of that premise. I even felt that way a half-hour in during the circus scene.
But then it hit me. The circus scene was showing these people dancing around with excellent choreography while you heard Cesar's philosophical ramblings meant you had to try and focus on two different things, right? But both were being shoved in your face, so which takes the front lines? THAT WAS IT. There were no front lines. This creative manifesto (as Rotten Tomatoes calls it) is actually a challenge to us. It was testing the audience and which of the two we would pay attention to, or at least that was my theory. Now I was already used to the idea of being amazed by the visuals, having seen many of the trailers. I went into it ready to try and put together a story, but it was so easy that in the end I decided to focus on the philosophy instead.
So this movie is a modern day take on Ancient Rome, and why? Obviously, like Babylon, it's comparing our current behavior to the behavior of a sinful time. So how does this play into the philosophy and the visuals combining into one? Well, Coppola's been making semi-autobiographical movies about his philosophies toward filmmaking, so it seemed to make perfect sense: Coppola is TRYING to distract most people from the story by flooding us with visuals, but is also trying to see if we can put together the philosophies and follow along with the varying takes on humanity's duty to society, and there are plenty of those and quite a bit of character development here. The fact that the characters are at least fairly engrossing seems to justify that, especially when the casting is high-bar.
So this is my theory: Coppola is testing us. If we're able to follow along with the philosophies, we're real moviegoers and we're looking for a deeper meaning in things, which means we're a lot like Cesar wants to be. If we're distracted by visuals (whether enjoyed or not), then we're as shallow as the highfalutin millionaires spending their money on wine, women and song. Cesar himself criticized that behavior and aimed for a society where people are growing. In other words, if we see more than that in Megalopolis, we are the future. If not, then we're shallow. This is a bit egotistical for the mighty Coppola, but whatevs. If the Redditers are gonna praise Ridley Scott for calling his own Blade Runner one of the greatest movies of all time, then this little one-twenty-mill stunt from Francis' own pocket, assuming my theory is true, should be fine. He HAS already made movies about his rejection for what we all think. In fact, one can even say that Coppola might be taking that philosophy a step further by not only rejecting us, but turning our praise and disdain back on us by having the movie dissect us while we're dissecting the movie. All of this in a simple story about a fight for power among a few parties.
Now that I'm done with my theory, let's get into the technical stuff. The visuals are undoubtedly some of the greatest, if not THE greatest, ever seen in the modern age. There are surrealist paintings involved here that morph into sensations only before captured in a few instances by The Life of Pi. In fact, the dream city of Megalopolis takes my beloved Chocolate Room and shows the hot iron stirring rod up its ass. Even as I was focusing on the story, I remained impressed by the visuals. While I didn't know exactly what visuals I would get through the two-hour whole, I knew what to expect, allowing my surprises among the visuals to be perfectly tame.
As for the story, I liked it. This glorious cast of characters was not only fun to watch for two reasons going hand in hand: the acting was spot-on through and through, and the philosophies and conversations (addressed as the mark of bravery and controversy) were realistic and somewhat fun to hear because of the realism, even though a little pretentiousness could be sensed along the way. This helped the story and the themes to progress naturally and more easily that what the average moviegoer may let on. So do the visuals offer a distraction? Can I negatively compare this more coherent film to The Tree of Life? So far, I'm not really thinking so. But there are a couple things I need to address. First of all, this movie's introducing art film behavior to the CGI masses, and normalizing CGI to the type who use the word “auteur.” This is an exceptionally bold move. Secondly, it can be said that there isn't ENOUGH time travel, but we got exactly what we needed from the time travel's presence in the movie as far as developing the story goes, so once again this is a movie that goes beyond expectations for thematic reasons. Thirdly, the philosophical quotes need a little more coherency, but that's about it.
All in all, I have to say that the biggest flaw of this movie is really how innovative it is. This is a challenge that I think succeeds at the thematic in the long run, and manages to tell its story perfectly well despite it amazing visuals, so those who get distracted from the story really just aren't paying attention. They often go hand-in-hand, sometimes on a symbolic level bordering on the psychological. This is some very fine filmmaking from Coppola. This is a level of bombast that succeeds in technicality, base but characterized storytelling, some symbolism and heavy social philosophies. Personally, as a Coppola fan, I am quite satisfied with my current consensus. However, this movie is likely going to be dissected until the end up time. I could be totally wrong on a couple things, and am willing to accept that outcome. This movie might be hated by half the world now, but Coppola just might be right. The acting, visuals, and ease of storytelling warrant plenty of replay value, and two hours and twenty minutes really isn't THAT long anymore. There's every reason to want to go back to this, and because of that, more discussions about the film and its OWN future may rise, and eventually, more about society and OUR own future may rise as well. So forgive me for being a Coppola fanboy who happens to praise this film, but I must be honest as I am analytical, and I hope I was able to prove that.
= 98.5
This film does not affect Francis Ford Coppola's Directorial Score. He remains at #1 on my Best Directors List with an average score of 100 / 5.
Megalopolis
(2024) - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
--------------------------------------------
Drama / Epic / Sci-Fi/ Dystopian / Postmodernism
-------------------------------------------------
"When does an empire die?"
(2024) - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
--------------------------------------------
Drama / Epic / Sci-Fi/ Dystopian / Postmodernism
-------------------------------------------------
"When does an empire die?"
I can only hope that my reputation among fellow online moviegoers isn't that of a fanboy or an overemotional child, especially considering that there are some directors, such as Coppola, who are extremely dear to my heart. I could go on about how one of my favorites, Don Bluth, only has one movie I'd give five-stars and try to use that as proof of something, but I want to make it perfectly clear: I am willing to criticize hit movies. I am willing to compliment bad movies. I say this all because Megalopolis has been the ONE movie I've been more excited about for years. I have been prepared for the idea that this could be his masterpiece or a total disaster. I've heard much of the commentary regarding this controversial CGI art gallery. And now that I've seen it, I'm ready to write my review, flesh out my final thoughts and come to a consensus.
In an alternate take on modern society, Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is an architect who can control time and is attempting to rebuild his city of New Rome into Megalopolis, a city made entirely out of his original material Megalon. While his views clash against a powerful rival, Mayor Frank Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), he develops feelings for Cicero's daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), and as well has to deal with the antics of his jealous cousin, Clodio (Shia Labeouf). In this modern Rome, Cesar becomes the victim of scandals, accusations and even violence in all of his efforts to reinvent modern society, especially from his ex-mistress, TV reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza).
Having already seen the gloriously ambitious surrealist film, The Holy Mountain, I felt that I was fully prepared for anything, be it conventional or experimental. I went into the theater with a very specific mindset: see if symbolism is telling the story. And why? Because I've heard about how confusing the visuals make it, and I wanted to see if that's what Coppola was trying to achieve. And I left the theater thinking, “What the hell were they talking about? I'm following this story just fine. The symbolism only has a say in a few scenes.” I mean, seriously. This is what it is: a few powerful people are arguing about the fate of their city while dealing with personal problems. Easy. You could make a sitcom out of that premise. I even felt that way a half-hour in during the circus scene.
But then it hit me. The circus scene was showing these people dancing around with excellent choreography while you heard Cesar's philosophical ramblings meant you had to try and focus on two different things, right? But both were being shoved in your face, so which takes the front lines? THAT WAS IT. There were no front lines. This creative manifesto (as Rotten Tomatoes calls it) is actually a challenge to us. It was testing the audience and which of the two we would pay attention to, or at least that was my theory. Now I was already used to the idea of being amazed by the visuals, having seen many of the trailers. I went into it ready to try and put together a story, but it was so easy that in the end I decided to focus on the philosophy instead.
So this movie is a modern day take on Ancient Rome, and why? Obviously, like Babylon, it's comparing our current behavior to the behavior of a sinful time. So how does this play into the philosophy and the visuals combining into one? Well, Coppola's been making semi-autobiographical movies about his philosophies toward filmmaking, so it seemed to make perfect sense: Coppola is TRYING to distract most people from the story by flooding us with visuals, but is also trying to see if we can put together the philosophies and follow along with the varying takes on humanity's duty to society, and there are plenty of those and quite a bit of character development here. The fact that the characters are at least fairly engrossing seems to justify that, especially when the casting is high-bar.
So this is my theory: Coppola is testing us. If we're able to follow along with the philosophies, we're real moviegoers and we're looking for a deeper meaning in things, which means we're a lot like Cesar wants to be. If we're distracted by visuals (whether enjoyed or not), then we're as shallow as the highfalutin millionaires spending their money on wine, women and song. Cesar himself criticized that behavior and aimed for a society where people are growing. In other words, if we see more than that in Megalopolis, we are the future. If not, then we're shallow. This is a bit egotistical for the mighty Coppola, but whatevs. If the Redditers are gonna praise Ridley Scott for calling his own Blade Runner one of the greatest movies of all time, then this little one-twenty-mill stunt from Francis' own pocket, assuming my theory is true, should be fine. He HAS already made movies about his rejection for what we all think. In fact, one can even say that Coppola might be taking that philosophy a step further by not only rejecting us, but turning our praise and disdain back on us by having the movie dissect us while we're dissecting the movie. All of this in a simple story about a fight for power among a few parties.
Now that I'm done with my theory, let's get into the technical stuff. The visuals are undoubtedly some of the greatest, if not THE greatest, ever seen in the modern age. There are surrealist paintings involved here that morph into sensations only before captured in a few instances by The Life of Pi. In fact, the dream city of Megalopolis takes my beloved Chocolate Room and shows the hot iron stirring rod up its ass. Even as I was focusing on the story, I remained impressed by the visuals. While I didn't know exactly what visuals I would get through the two-hour whole, I knew what to expect, allowing my surprises among the visuals to be perfectly tame.
As for the story, I liked it. This glorious cast of characters was not only fun to watch for two reasons going hand in hand: the acting was spot-on through and through, and the philosophies and conversations (addressed as the mark of bravery and controversy) were realistic and somewhat fun to hear because of the realism, even though a little pretentiousness could be sensed along the way. This helped the story and the themes to progress naturally and more easily that what the average moviegoer may let on. So do the visuals offer a distraction? Can I negatively compare this more coherent film to The Tree of Life? So far, I'm not really thinking so. But there are a couple things I need to address. First of all, this movie's introducing art film behavior to the CGI masses, and normalizing CGI to the type who use the word “auteur.” This is an exceptionally bold move. Secondly, it can be said that there isn't ENOUGH time travel, but we got exactly what we needed from the time travel's presence in the movie as far as developing the story goes, so once again this is a movie that goes beyond expectations for thematic reasons. Thirdly, the philosophical quotes need a little more coherency, but that's about it.
All in all, I have to say that the biggest flaw of this movie is really how innovative it is. This is a challenge that I think succeeds at the thematic in the long run, and manages to tell its story perfectly well despite it amazing visuals, so those who get distracted from the story really just aren't paying attention. They often go hand-in-hand, sometimes on a symbolic level bordering on the psychological. This is some very fine filmmaking from Coppola. This is a level of bombast that succeeds in technicality, base but characterized storytelling, some symbolism and heavy social philosophies. Personally, as a Coppola fan, I am quite satisfied with my current consensus. However, this movie is likely going to be dissected until the end up time. I could be totally wrong on a couple things, and am willing to accept that outcome. This movie might be hated by half the world now, but Coppola just might be right. The acting, visuals, and ease of storytelling warrant plenty of replay value, and two hours and twenty minutes really isn't THAT long anymore. There's every reason to want to go back to this, and because of that, more discussions about the film and its OWN future may rise, and eventually, more about society and OUR own future may rise as well. So forgive me for being a Coppola fanboy who happens to praise this film, but I must be honest as I am analytical, and I hope I was able to prove that.
= 98.5
This film does not affect Francis Ford Coppola's Directorial Score. He remains at #1 on my Best Directors List with an average score of 100 / 5.