'Megalopolis' Reviews: "It’s a noble aspiration, if only the film actually said anything coherent"

         On September 27, 2024, Lionsgate releases 'Megalopolis', which has earned predominantly negative reviews from critics, currently holding at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes alongside a Critics Consensus that reads, "More of a creative manifesto than a cogent narrative feature, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is an overstuffed opus that's equal parts stimulating and slapdash." "MEGALOPOLIS is a Roman Epic set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor's daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves." But what exactly did the critics say?

       Damien Straker of Impulse Gamer says, "Francis Ford Coppola only had a concept of a plan. Megalopolis is the American epic he has been attempting to develop since 1977. An entire generation or two of actors was ready to be cast in the film before the project was canned, revived, and derailed again. The plan in the 1980s was that the film would unfold over a single day in New York with the city juxtaposed against Catiline Rome. It never came to fruition. It was then to be filmed in the early 2000s, but shooting was disrupted by the September 11 terrorist attacks. The film has now finally opened albeit to mixed reviews and a dismal box office performance that aptly reflects its disappointing form. The poor reception has also been compounded by various industry scandals, including but not limited to inappropriate behaviour, fake reviews in the film’s trailer, and hilariously Coppola rating the film himself five-stars on his own Letterboxd account. There is extensive information about how chaotic and unprofessional the actual shooting process was at times too. The noise aside, what is indisputable is that Megalopolis was not worth the drama. It is a poor film that fails to sustain its dramatic tension or utilise its rich cast. Consequently, this terrible passion project should see this once great director go quietly into the night."

       Chris Evangelista of Slashfilm disagrees, stating, "Megalopolis" may be a mess, but gosh, it's a beautiful mess — an unapologetically earnest film aching to be seen on the biggest screen possible, even if some of its imagery is ugly and flat thanks to questionable visual effects. After failing for so long to get the movie off the ground, and set back by years of box office disappointment, Coppola funded the film himself, putting up an eye-popping $120 million to get "Megalopolis" made on his own terms. The final result arrives on a wave of behind-the-scenes rumors and controversies (Coppola is currently suing Variety over some of those rumors), and also the foregone conclusion that the movie will ultimately flop." Adding, "But a movie's box office does not determine its quality, and one has to assume that the 85-year-old Coppola isn't really concerned with "Megalopolis" being a hit at this point. He just wants people to see it, and see it they should, flaws and all. In an era where Hollywood dreck becomes more homogenized and dictated by venture capitalists who don't give a flying f**k about actual art, the fact that "Megalopolis" exists at all is something of a miracle. I do not love the final film itself, but gosh, I love that I got to see it."

       Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly was less than impressed, stating, "Despite being nearly three hours long, more substantive sentences have probably been written about what Megalopolis might be than what is actually in the script. Francis Ford Coppola changed cinema as we know it, and his Godfather films will remain hallmarks of American filmmaking. But his latest film (and possibly his last) is a stain on his legacy. Somehow Megalopolis manages to be both chaotic and unspeakably boring. Coppola melds Ancient Rome with modern-day New York, which is a stab at commentary on America’s own declining empire (look out for the “Make Rome Great Again” sign and the pointed line about politicians only needing to be entertainers). It’s a noble aspiration, if only the film actually said anything coherent."

       Andrew Webster of The Verge notes, "There’s a refreshing idealism to Megalopolis. In a time overflowing with grim, nihilistic postapocalyptic stories, Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film is a retrofuturistic parable about creating a better world through architecture, science, and dreams. Unfortunately, that sheen fades almost immediately. The film wants viewers to imagine an idealistic future. But its vision for that future is so vague as to be meaningless. For all of its good intentions, Megalopolis is a confusing, bloated disaster. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as the lead-up to the film’s release has mostly been focused on one controversy after another. There’s the long development time, with director Coppola working on the movie in some form since 1982, forced to self-finance the entire $120 million production because studios passed on it. There are the reports of inappropriate on-set behavior (and a subsequent lawsuit), specifically hiring actors “who were canceled at one point or another,” and all of those fake AI-generated review quotes. The four-decade-long process of bringing Megalopolis to theaters was an absolute mess, much like the film itself."

Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

        Jackson Weaver of CBC News writes, "Sanctimonious to the point of insulting, Megalopolis is a cautionary tale — though not about the entropic nature of empires and civilization. It's a warning about what too much money, too much self-seriousness and too little editing can do to an artist." Adding, "The intent to compare the fall or Rome with the projected fall of the U.S. does lead to one of Megalopolis's sole points of value. The parallels between Megalopolis's Cicero and Catilina and their Roman counterparts' competing interpretations of the value of the republic — as well as their involvement in the Catilinian plot to overthrow it — will be interesting to those with an eye for history."