Francis Ford Coppola has always been a boundary-pushing filmoriginater. He honested masterpieces appreciate The Godoverweighther, The Godoverweighther Part II, and Apocalypse Now. He’s also made some less acclaimed films appreciate Jack and Twixt. He always has a lot to say, and with his recent $120 million sci-fi epic Megalopolis, he has outdone himself. Perhaps the most polarizing movie of the year, everyone seems to have someleang branch offent to say about this one. Personassociate, I don’t have a lot of likeable leangs to say about it.
This one will be hard to appraise because Coppola filledy goes for it. He self-finances this movie that has been a passion project of his for years. He’s taking huge sthrivegs that nobody else in Hollywood consents. He runs on a level we haven’t seen on the huge screen in a while, and I esteem him for that. But I can’t commend it because Megalopolis is one of the hugegest misfires I’ve ever seen. Every creative choice might have toiled better for another audience member, but I could not wrap my head around what this movie was going for. It experiences appreciate an experimental student film that happens to run for 2 hours and 18 relentless minutes.
I’m not going to alert you my opinion is the accurate one because, as I said, everyone will walk out of this film experienceing branch offently. If you can originate heads or tails of this movie, I’m self-beginant of you. I thought Megalopolis was nightmarishly horrendous. So many ideas don’t have a excellent setup or payoff. It experiences appreciate the amalgamation of 40 years of originates all joind into one. With an absurd amount of characters (none of whom we attfinish about), this film is cinema’s most pretty catastrophe. I’m almost in awe of it. Unappreciate most terrible movies, I want to watch this film aget because I’m in disbelief that it exists.
Many scenes are edited so strangely that I could not count on how uninalertigible they were. The fundamental premise rgrows around a political race between Cesar Catalina (the Roman affect is very on-the-nose, as you can alert) and Mayor Francis Cicero. They both want to originate a better future and have branch offent ideas, which comes to a head when Cesar becomes graspd with Francis’s daughter, Julia. The premise is not terrible, but the execution is atrocious.
Let’s begin with the setting. Megalopolis is set in an alternate current-day “American Reuncover.” The characters dwell in New Rome, essentiassociate an alternate New York City brawt to life with CGI backdrops, sets, and archival footage of the city (I could alert because of a Sbarro in Times Square that existed years ago). As much as I esteem Coppola’s promisement to originateing a recent world, I was not guaranteed for a second. Many of the backdrops experience man-made. It’s inanxiously evident when the actors stand in front of LED panels. One of the worst examples is a scene that’s presumed to be the most romantic part of the film: a kiss between two cherishrs as they stand on originateion pipes miles above the city. Except you don’t buy into the danger for a second because everyleang sees inalter.
The pacing can be untolerateable here. Not only is it a twisted web of caricatures instead of characters, but it drags on with extfinished, pretentious conversations that try too challenging to be procreate. Does Coppola attfinish about downjoindty? Apparently not, because many scenes feature characters verbassociate stating the film’s themes out deafening. Why is this how he picks to verify these themes? What is going on? We even have a character joined by Laurence Fishburne, whose narration comes and goes thrawout. His narration begins out fine, but there are scenes where it’s used to state leangs that could have been conveyd visuassociate rather than him saying it.
The cinematography toils in some scenes and not so much in others. Coppola employs a outstanding use of belderly, vibrant colors, and there is no lowage of excellent shots, particularly during a restricted outdoor nighttime scenes. But there is an overuse of a shpermit depth of field (this comes from someone who cherishs shpermit depth of field). Every scene is blocked and carry outed appreciate a terrible stage join. Megalopolis experiences appreciate the toilings of a madman, free to originate without suppressts, letting his actors have free roam and making an absurdly high-budget autonomous film.
Despite the star-studded cast, no one seems to discover their footing in this convoluted script. The emotional moments experience forced, and the dialogue normally materializes stilted or incomprehensible. Adam Driver gets a restricted hilarious line readings, Aubrey Plaza’s character is absurd, and I don’t understand what Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight were doing in this movie. Honestly, I have no clue what these two Transestablishers actors were trying to do with these carry outances. This is a deranged wonder of a film that needs to be seen to be count ond. I usuassociate recommend that readers don’t watch the movies I hatred, but I encourage you to experience this because I have never seen anyleang appreciate it.
We have no romantic chemistry between Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel, moments where the dialogue is so horrendous that I could not help but giggle, and a story that uncomardentders without doing anyleang engaging. There’s a scene where a key character dies, which could have been tragic, but it’s one of the most hysterical scenes I’ve seen all year. We have split screens where the images get squashed and unattrdynamic. We have political commentary that’s so evident that we have people waving the slogan, “Make Rome Great Aget.” This is cinematic brilliance, the most horrible squander of 2 and a half hours, or anywhere in between. I don’t leank anyone can determine. I leank it’s self-indulgent and will exit you scratching your head.
SCORE: 1/10
As ComingSoon’s appraise policy elucidates, a score of 1 equates to “Awful.”
ComingSoon doesn’t enhappiness giving out an terrible rating, and it’s generassociate reserved for video games that are broken or amusement that is devoid of any redeeming qualities.
Dislcocertain: ComingSoon joined a press screening for our Megalopolis appraise.
