Francis Ford Coppola’s epic passion project Megalopolis is finally hitting theaters and if you’ve been hearing rumors how bonkers it is, just know that isn’t being oversold. Even the official synopsis sounds wild:
Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.
The cinematography is stunning, the story is vast, and the experimentation is there: at one point, Adam Driver’s Cesar speaks to an audience member in a Q&A – not an audience member who is a character in the film, but an actual audience member in the theater. Reports emerged from its world premiere that the audience booed it even as they gave it a 7-minute standing ovation. Like I said, weird. Part arthouse, part big-budget sci-fi, Coppola has been dreaming of Megalopolis for literal decades, even selling off part of his vast wine empire to finance the film from his own pocket.
Unsurprisingly, the reviews are as mixed. Some critics love it. Some hated it. But all agree it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen, and that weird, audacious swings should be celebrated in an era where Hollywood and complete daring are usually complete strangers. It’s shaping up to be, arguably, the one movie of our lifetimes (at least so far) where it’s entirely up to you whether or not to see it – but it will definitely be a memorable experience. Don’t believe me? Read a few snippets of what critics have to say:
It reminded me of experimental theater where a troop of strong actors are given a task and the end result is unlike something you’ve ever seen before. You like that you went on the ride, but you can’t quite pinpoint if it totally works.
Is it an unfashionable ode to optimism and the freedom to create, a vision as generous as it is crazy as it is overflowing with delirious invention? That, too.
At a time when borderline hacks like Todd Phillips and Zack Snyder are regularly decreed as “visionary” filmmakers, Francis Coppola has returned to show them what the term really means with the long-gestating, uneven and always-captivating Megalopolis
Megalopolis is the product of man who has tried to put everything he knows or thinks into one climactic work. And whether or not it all fits, it’s exhilarating to watch him try.
“Megalopolis” is exactly what movies can and should be—unflinchingly earnest.
Megalopolis is, for better and worse, a profoundly personal vision, whose wordy metaphors eventually give way to jaw-dropping transformations.
There’s something weirdly compelling in its flaws — after all, if your film can’t be great, you might as well make it so strange that audiences can’t entirely write it off.
But perhaps Chris Evangelista of Slashfilm summed it up the most eloquently:
We are lucky to have Megalopolis.
