Michael’s Movie Grade: F
A near unwatchable pretentious mess.
Often times when a film is a passion project, it either winds up as a masterpiece or a complete mess. Sadly, Megalopolis is the latter. One of cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Francis Ford Coppola had this project in mind for decades before it finally reached the screen. Perhaps his passion blinded him to the excess and hollowness that plagues this film. Megalopolis is nothing if not ambitious with its larger-than-life visuals and often avant-garde filmmaking. However, beneath all this the movie is completely hollow. There are some interesting concepts here with how the movie compares modern day America to ancient Rome. Unfortunately, these concepts get buried under all the visual excess and subplots. Because of this they go mostly unexplored, and the film ends up not saying much of anything. The imagery in this movie is larger than life and very impressive. However, it is truly too much of a good thing. There is so much thrown at us constantly that it soon loses any sense of awe and wonder. It does not take long for us to grow tired of this imagery. What should be a great visual spectacle is instead simply monotonous. As for the story, there are so many subplots that none of them are given the time to be fleshed out. The same can be said for the characters. The dialogue is ridiculously pretentious. The narration is unintentionally funny, and the constant literary references make all the characters sound like self-proclaimed intellectuals trying too hard to prove that they are smart.
This movie is a sad giant misstep in the career of a great filmmaker. Francis Ford Coppola financed and produced this film himself. So, if there is one thing to take away from this film it is that even the director of The Godfather needs someone to tell him that he is going too far sometimes,
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