REVIEW #411 Megalopolis (2024)

SYNOPSIS

A conflict ensues between Caesar, a genius artists with aims to lead civilisation into a utopian, idealistic future and ‘New Rome’s” Mayor Cicero, who wants to keep to the regressive status quo. 

REVIEW

Francis Ford Coppola combines surrealism and symbolism to create an overly eccentric modernisation of the Roman Empire and although I appreciate the comparisons between modern failings in society and humanities inability to learn from historic mistakes, the absurdity of certain plot points disconnected me from the overarching narrative. Those absurdities are present across all three acts but they are exacerbated as the movie progresses and as such, I found my enjoyment declining with the passing of each act. By the end of the two hours (which felt like three), I was more than ready for the film to end. Nonetheless, there were at least positives that made the film enjoyable, to an extent. I loved the cast and the script allowed them to perform in ways audiences haven’t seen them before. The costume and set design was executed nicely, although I certainly preferred it when the scenes had practical sets compared to the CGI, which often looked sub par, hiding behind the weak justification of ‘abstract artistry’.

Now the absurd plot points I mentioned earlier involve Caesar’s ability to control time, which is never explained nor justified and in fact it didn’t really contribute to the plot beyond serving the metaphor of artists being able to slow down time when creating. One that even Coppola didn’t feel was clear enough, so he had to include obvious exposition from Nathalie Emmanuel’s ‘Julia’ to explain its purpose. Secondly the adaptive substance Megalon, in this case, there was an attempt to explain its origin but that was just as confusing as the substance itself. A more scientific approach to its origin and creation would have been a much more logical way to ground the plot slightly and it would have avoided audience confusion. If you had removed even one of these two plot points, I think the film would have benefited significantly, making it more coherent. Unfortunately this will go down as a failed experiment by Coppola, a costly one to the director, who self funded the predicted box office flop. But if there’s one thing to take away, hopefully the movies on the nose representation of the greedy elite, will wake people up to the current problems our globe are facing and who are causing them.

RATING: 5 out of 10

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Film Review Club