Megalopolis Spoiler Free Review

Megalopolis

Genre: ???

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Released: 2024



     Megalopolis, the self-financed vanity project by relevancy-starved director Francis Ford Coppola, follows an architect named Caesar Catalina as he attempts to build a utopia in the middle of New Rome, a city in America run by mayor Franklin Cicero. I could go into more detail about the plot, but to what end?

     Megalopolis may be the closest I have ever come to describing a movie as "So bad it's good." Because make no mistake: this is a very, very bad movie. Its useless, paper-thin characters stagger around the screen executing the awkward blocking of a high school play while spouting breathtakingly poor, middle school dialogue, its terrible special effects suck the life out of would-be jaw dropping displays of man's full architectural power unleashed, and its cast of (mostly) heavy-hitters is wasted on a banal, bloated, self-indulgent script with nothing intelligent or worthwhile to say.

     That being said, it's also one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I'm not trying to be facetious or hyperbolic when I say that there were points in the movie where I was wheezing with barely-suppressed laughter. Most of this is thanks to that aforementioned dialogue which, I can't overemphasize this enough, is the worst part of the movie if you can't find some humor in it. The question of whether or not Megalopolis contends with heady philosophical themes competently (it most assuredly does not), is kind of a moot one in the face of the eye-wateringly clunky metaphors, awkward speeches, and stilted conversations that are mostly the vehicle by which the movie sets out to deliver on these themes. Whatever Megalopolis tries to say or wishes it could say, the cold hard facts are that it's not possible to take it seriously with lines that wouldn't pass muster in a community creative writing class attended entirely by fourth-graders. 

     Aside from the dialogue, the script for Megalopolis (by which I mean the movie's broader plot, character development, and narrative cohesion) is similarly the kind of tripe that can only aspire to be featured on amateur hour. The plot lurches through jarring time jumps seemingly because the writer *cough* Coppola *cough* couldn't be bothered with either condensing things or fleshing them out. Major developments happen in the span of twenty seconds, offscreen, or, worst of all, are mentioned as having happened offscreen in the span of twenty seconds only to never be brought up again! I have to reiterate: I cannot even begin to perform a thematic analysis of Megalopolis because, whatever the dubious merits of this movie's soul may be, it is trapped in a desiccated husk of a story that defies any attempt at deeper evaluation. 

     And yet, if you take the movie as a parody of self-important, wannabe "intellectual" cinema, you'll probably have a grand old time. Lines like "I'm breaking his heart!" are so reminiscent of Star Wars prequel trilogy writing (literally, in this case) that what can you do but laugh? A would-be dramatic confirmation between father and daughter comes to a close when said father tears up an important piece of paper only for daughter to exclaim "I can make more copies!" That's funny stuff right there! The movie's unbelievably rushed, saccharine ending that features sworn enemies shaking hands and broken relationships mended without anything in the way of explanation is terrible, but, in a very real sense, laughably so. 

     There really is nothing good I can say about Megalopolis. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The only thing I can say in its favor is to pay it the ultimate back-handed compliment and say that I kind of liked parts of it, but for the exact opposite reasons that the director probably intended. 



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