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. 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 realise 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 go see it. It takes full advantage of the big screen, with multiple visually stunning moments.
The story is thematically fascinating. Ancient Rome by way of a science-fiction New York City that combines the ancient past with a future of ambiguous proximity…
