Megalopolis: A Movie Review

Megalopolis is the best and most fascinating thing Francis Ford Coppola has done since Apocalypse Now.

I have seen it three times on the big screen now, and felt no sense of repetition over those viewings. It seemed like a new movie each time. On the third viewing I could finally absorb the movie whole, like most other movies first time round, in something of a normal fashion. I found the first viewing a unique and impressive, though bewildering, experience. In that way it reminds me of David Lynch’s early 2000s masterpiece, Mulholland Drive.

High praise to open a review of a film that has been lambasted in strong terms, at times as a messy, boring, pretentious failure of epic proportions. I’ve read enough to see this is a movie that will strike viewers in very different ways. Some of my favourite movie critics have tore it to shreds. I quite love it.

This highly theatrical science fiction fable is sure to have a short cinema run given its professional limbo-dancing low box office takings, so I would encourage anyone who will appreciate its qualities (which I hope to give you an idea of below) to catch it while it’s showing. It takes full advantage of the big screen, with multiple visually stunning moments, and that’s the only place you’ll see it at its best.

The story is thematically fascinating. Ancient Rome by way of a science-fiction New York City that combines the distant past with a future that feels both near to the present and far away. In this world New York was named New Rome, a city on the precipice of becoming either a Gotham City-like dystopia of endless consumerism, riots and escalating civil unrest, or a utopian construction project.

The world-building is great, with a $120m budget (likely the biggest independent production of all time) that looks more like $300m+ on the screen, and levers the viewer’s imagination to extend what is shown.

It is not a movie that entertains in the usual fashion. It needs, in the parlance of our times, unusual levels of engagement with things done in highly unconventional ways. It will either fascinate you without conscious effort, igniting a fire of interest and taking you on a wild, imaginative, hallucinatory and dreamlike ride, or not — at least on first viewing.

A few things the movie is: unashamedly theatrical, ambitious, artistically brave, experimental, oddball, formally novel, uninterested in making commercial compromise, visually imaginative and wonderful (many shots feel instantly iconic), an original story with epic scope and zero franchise potential, and deep with acting talent who all seem to be having fun with the high theatricality of their roles.

These roles vary between over-the-top villainy, Shakespearean deliveries, manic and oddball energies with a comic undertone, flights of weightless romance, perverse machinations of power, and yeah, a bit of chin-stroking philosophising, which to be fair is pretty interesting, and a few shades in between. It’s light on quiet and calm moments, though some of those moments carry the most impact. For the most part, it’s moving at hyper-speed — except for when it’s almost completely still, freezing time in moments that do not involve shouting “time, stop!” (which do also happen).

I think the performances are excellent, though most are playing in dialled-up, theatrical keys. And not all the same key. Performances are discordant with each other, clashing in interesting ways and creating a rich tapestry of characterisations at odds with each other. In the background an impoverished underclass watches quietly from the sidelines, protests, or riots, apparently locked out of participation in their society’s future as our heroes and villains engage in cosmic power battles.

Adam Driver said the shoot felt like experimental theatre, and it was one of his best experiences on set. I think he’s quite terrific steering a psychedelic ship as Cesar, an architect who has discovered Megalon, a new material capable of building structures of new forms, serving medical purposes, and oh, making novelty dresses. It’s versatile. (Side-note: Megalon makes most sense as a magical representation of technology, rather than a literal invention; it’s a big part of what makes the story a fable). Cesar loses his wife around the same time he discovers the substance, and is engaged in a longstanding personal and political battle with the city Mayor.

Jon Voight gives a performance I found one of the most intriguing, if difficult to make sense of at first, as head of the city’s bank. He is frequently drunk or mindlessly lost in consumption, including in weird Roman-styled spectacles put on in a version of Madison Square Garden serving as New Rome’s colosseum. He seems addled, but his mind is surprisingly sharp when it comes to self-preservation. The character is a strange brew of evil confused with good, mindless and sharp-witted at the same time, and Voight renders the performance in a memorable way. It is vivid and memorable.

Aubrey Plaza adds a manic, high-speed gonzo energy as Wow (that’s the name), a popular reporter set on climbing the ladder of fame and fortune by any means. Wow pops up everywhere in New Rome like a roving menace, a shrewd dark angel who always appears somewhere central to the story. Plaza performs the role in a highly entertaining way on screen.

Giancarlo Esposito plays Mayor Cicero, at loggerheads with Cesar, and develops a thoughtfully articulated character arc on screen in the role written with most nuance. I think he turns in a special performance that rivals what he did in Breaking Bad as Gus Fring. One of the movie’s most powerful moments simply involves him following the lead of his partner as a kind of impossible leap of faith against his own stubbornness. A simple shot that etched itself into my brain like a storybook frame (there’s a few like that).

Nathalie Emmanuel performs on a calmer register to most as Julia, the daughter of the Mayor who becomes romantically involved with Cesar. Her performance is identifiable closer to reality, which opens opportunities to portray a simpler, more authentic expression of love within the chaos than would otherwise be possible. She is theatrical and playful — qualities that make her character belong in this world. I think this tone of performance suits her character perfectly, and is crucial to some of the movie’s best images and moments, which need a calmer energy to work.

Laurence Fishburne is cut from mental granite as Fundi, Cesar’s right-hand man and assistant and the story’s narrator. It’s great to see Fishburne take a journey through cinema with Francis over the decades, and to have the comparison between teenager on the boat in Apocalypse Now and aged voice of wisdom in Megalopolis. Fundi acts as an observer and historian of New Rome, and as narrator has a more direct relationship with the viewer.

Shia LaBeouf is effective as a weapon in a role over-the-top in villainy, and the story’s most destructive character, a jealous cousin of Cesar’s whose path mixes with elements like Neo-Nazism, incest, and other dark forms of violence. His characterisation is often grating, like nails scratched on a blackboard. An unpleasant chord struck loudly in what I found to be the right measure.

Dustin Hoffman has minor screen time, but I think he nails a theatrical villain in a suitably slippery fashion, half in the shadows. He adds notes of sinister intrigue to the dark underbelly of New Rome’s power structures better than most actors could in the role.

The script tracks a fairly (but not overly so) complex plot and is dense with historical and cultural references impossible to fully unpack at the speed of 24 frames per second. That could be an experience-destroying obstacle, or a trivial detail lost in the imaginative thrill of an unusual and fascinating viewing experience.

My first viewing left me in something of a bewildered stun of WTF emojis with little birds over my head. I soaked in the feel of the movie, its theatrical tone and visual qualities, powerful images and shots, the spirit of the story and its message, and not much else. But I was entranced by the sum of what I experienced.

My second viewing, after reading many reviews, confirmed I hadn’t somehow seen a terrible movie, became confused by the overwhelm of it, and mistook it for something great. It also let me dial into the theatrical fun of the story and performances better.

My third viewing had allowed the smoke to clear, and I found it the most rewarding. I was able to finally break the movie down into scenes and see it has a similar quality to Apocalypse Now in that almost every damn scene is special in some way, with qualities I want to pour over and take apart on future viewings. The film student in me re-appeared.

Part of the entertainment value I found in the movie is through the same absurdity I see critiqued. It has an offbeat humour. The line “go back to the club” from Driver during a ridiculously pretentious chastisement (certainly, played for laughs) brings this out pointedly. Other comic moments fly past in whizzing montages, such as an imaginary tug-of-war between a highly inebriated Cesar and Julia that I didn’t pick up on first watch, but found myself laughing at on a later watch.

The movie has a highly playful creative energy, which extends to ideas of playing with time. It’s earnest in moments, absurd and comic in others.

As unique as the movie is, I did find myself drawing comparisons. It called to mind AI (a grand science fiction fable belonging to all times at once, past, present, and future), Eyes Wide Shut (exploring a kind of perverted and decadent self-interest in the underbelly of power in a dreamlike way), Blade Runner (the science fiction world feels like a mirror-image reflection of that movie’s dark, gritty, ”perpetual night,” hyper-neon metropolis future; this is soaked in gold hues, like “perpetual dawn”), Gangs of New York (an enormous sense of staged theatricality and scale that feels like over-ambition, almost empty, at first), and Mulholland Drive (a complex puzzle playing on two levels, powerful surreal imagery, and a strong indifference as to whether the story is immediately comprehensible due to subtext being given much higher priority than usual). That I find similarity to all these great movies at once feels quite amazing. That doesn’t usually happen.

In 2024, when big productions like The Fall Guy, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Joker: Folie à Deux have performed way below expectations — and all of those movies are quite fantastic to varying degrees, while being entertaining in fairly-to-highly conventional ways —, Megalopolis never really stood a chance at the box office. It would have needed to catch on as an odd and unexpected cultural sensation that people talked about, but audiences don’t have the conditioning and reference points for movies like it (and they probably never have done, since the birth of the medium). Inside Out 2 took the place of “unexpected sensation” in 2024, and that’s well and good.

Ticket sales and critical reception de damned. Megalopolis had me fascinated and engaged in ways unlike other movies, as if watching a new form. It has me excited about unexplored potentials in the medium. And if it captures your heart, the optimism towards humanity its story contains can leave an impression. Cautious positivity about what we are capable of as a species, welcome in times that too often feel doom-laden.

Yes, I see something beautiful and profound in Megalopolis, and think it is likely a masterpiece. Only the test of time can say. For this viewer, the movie’s flaws (which are mostly risks) are blown out the water by its original qualities.

If you’ve made it this far, you might find the same.

James Lanternman writes movie reviews, essays, and moonlit thoughts. You can reach him at [email protected].

Previously… Civil War: A Movie Review