Review Tales

“And when we ask these questions, when there’s a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia.”

I have always been insanely critical of Francis Ford Coppola and many of the discourse and drama surrounding his new film, Megalopolis. Going to be 100% honest and say that nothing about this with the exception of a few parts seemed promising to me. It looked messy, ugly, pretentious, and insufferable. 

I also found its fanbase insanely toxic, hating on people who saw it before them to the point of even saying the world would be a better place without them. It also didn’t help that the Coppola binge I did earlier this year really soured my taste for him. He is not exactly a bad director, but one that I feel is insanely held back by his cliched storytelling and narratives. 

That is where Megalopolis comes in, with everything leading up to it, I was 100% convinced that at best I would walk out saying it was bad but not irredeemable…little did I know what my reaction would really be and more importantly turn into.

I watched Megalopolis for the first time on October 11th and my reaction was polarizing to say the least. It was such a conflicting experience filled with things I loved and hated. Amazing visuals, terrible visuals, amazing ideas, but confused execution. I genuinely could not tell if what I was watching was an earnest masterpiece or some old man yelling at clouds brain rot. But I knew one thing, it definitely was better than what I had heard. 

Fast forward a few weeks and I am still thinking about it. Visuals stuck in my mind, plot points weirdly resonating with me. Lines of dialogue sticking in my mind whether it be because of how hilarious they were, or because of how profound they were. It was infectious, brain melting, no matter how hard I tried I could not stop thinking about it over and over again. And then…America fell into despair.

On Nov. 5th, one of the most tragic days to happen to me in recent years happened, Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Evil had taken over America and I fell into a depressive episode. It was hard for me to watch anything for a few days and even when I did they had to be insanely short. I was angry, sad, and frustrated. I genuinely felt like killing myself. 

Watching Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s Look Back got me a little bit back into the swing of things, but rewatching Megalopolis is what made me feel whole again. Something about its honesty, the way it was almost a call for action to make the world a better place, looking at what the world was and still is going to turn into, was weirdly comforting. 

Knowing that if we just keep fighting and as long as there is just some good in the world, then maybe these next few years won’t be as bad as we originally thought. The whole situation really felt like the meteor sequence and interview. Something devastating happens, and then being told that as long as we love one another and strive for the future, things will get better.

Since I rewatched Megalopolis, it stayed in my mind. I came to realize that I resonated with it on a personal level.  That it was a film that I needed at this time and will probably need for years until I die. Every second I have thought about it, while doing work, while watching other movies, while talking to people, something from it flashes into my mind. This insane, ambitious, flawed, crazy, pretentious, controversial film just could not leave my mind. So I watched it again and can safely say that it is my favorite of the year and one of my favorites of the decade so far, and I plan to go in-depth as to why in this review.

Megalopolis is the latest and most controversial film from acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola, the man who gave us The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Coppola started writing Megalopolis 40 years ago and has struggled to make it sense. The film went through tons of rewrites, recastings, and multiple different versions were created over time. The film was finally shot between November 2022 and March 2023 and premiered at Cannes Film Festival to insanely mixed response. 

Some people walked out feeling like they had experienced a true passion project, and some walked out before the credits even rolled. The film then went through marketing hell with Coppola saying tons of controversial (and just down right stupid) things along with trailers with fake review quotes, canceled actors, and sexual harassment allegations against Coppola to top it all off. Like I said earlier, everything was looking like a disaster for Megalopolis and I was truly prepared to call it the worst film of the year…and now here it is and I can safely say that is far from the truth, if not the complete opposite.

The film follows Caesar Catilina, a controversial architect in New Rome who has ambitions to build a utopian city by the name of Megalopolis with his nobel prize winning invention, The Megalon, but must deal with the struggles when both the demons of his past and the higher-ups of New Rome reject Megalopolis, along with dealing with his complex relationship with the Mayor’s daughter.

First I want to talk about the characters. Every character is very unique and weird, for this review I will mostly be focusing on the big ones. Caesar Catilina (Adam Driver), Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), and Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). While there are many other characters, these are the ones I feel are most important to the overall story. 

Caesar Catilina is a very fascinating character. Many people have attributed many different interpretations of who he is supposed to represent. Some say Coppola himself, some say Nicholas Cage, some even say Elon Musk. I personally feel though that unlike some other characters, Catilina is not supposed to represent one person, but more a type of person, an artist.

In this case, Catilina’s artis architecture as he is the head of the Architecture of the city according to the dialogue said in the film, he can also stop time which is mostly symbolic of how artists stop time with their art. Paintings, movies, music, and even buildings encapsulate a certain time of when they were made or maybe even echo a time of the past or future.

Architecture is referenced a lot in Megalopolis and is something I will talk more about later. Caesar looks towards the future. He wants to give the people hope by creating Megalopolis, a utopia for the people of New Rome. He is a man of great ambitions for the future, but struggles because of his past and the people who do not believe in him, something I relate to a lot. To want to make something that inspires people, that speaks to them, and being cut off at the knees by the ones who don’t see eye to eye with your vision while also wrestling with the guilt and self doubt that your past mistakes brought on is something I know all too well. 

Caesar believes that he is responsible for his wife’s suicide, brought on more by the fact that most of the public believes he killed her himself, this clearly torments him even when he is helping or entertaining others like at the beginning of the colosseum segment. 

It also doesn’t help that he has a rocky relationship with his family as his mother seems to never be proud of him (Relatable as hell as me and my mother have similar issues and so with my father) and his cousin hates him. He is a broken man who tries to do what he can to make up for his mistakes and wants a better future for the world because of it, and he needs someone to push him further towards his goals.

Speaking of which, Julia Cicero, Caesar’s love interest and his rival’s daughter. Julia is a fascinating character. She reminds me of the people in my life that have inspired me throughout my life. The people who see good in me even when I am not at my best. 

Sure, when they first meet they kinda bicker at each other, but more in a way that is kinda playful than anything else. Julia honestly reminds me of a girl I dated back in my Sophomore year of High School. She was sweet, but she also made sure I knew I when I messed up in a way that helped me. The scene where she helps him gain his power to stop time back on the construction site of Megalopolis, which is in my opinion the best scene in the movie. 

Not only are the visuals stunning and surreal, but the overall way it plays out and what it means is inspiring and romantic. The feeling of finding someone who can pull you up when you fall down and remind you why you exist and why you do what you do. Caesar and Julia’s relationship is one of my favorite aspects of the film as it shows just how loyal and loving they are to each other, while also being able to acknowledge each other’s flaws and help each other when those flaws get in the way of their ambitions. 

Julia needs Caesar to show her new possibilities for the world, while Caesar needs Julia to motivate him to keep making those possibilities a reality when things go south. They are honestly one of my favorite couples in film because of just how much they inspire each other.

Francis Cicero is Julia’s father, Caesar’s rival, and the mayor of New Rome. Francis is a very conservative and controversial leader. He believes that things should stay how they are now and instead of focusing on creating a better future, we should keep things as they are and instead of helping the citizens of New Rome, decides to instead give them distractions like Casinos and jobs that don’t require much education.

The people of New Rome do not like him because of how blind and deaf he is to their struggles, his ideologies really only benefit him and when tragedy strikes, does not do much to fix things, even asking others to fix things for him like how he tells Nush Berman (Dustin Hoffman) to fix the Clodio situation. He is also corrupt in other ways, such as getting rid of evidence in the case of Caesar’s wife’s death, making him look more guilty. 

Though, even with these obvious flaws, he is not all evil as its clear he has a capacity to change and also still wants what’s best for the people he loves, Julia and his wife, Teresa (Kathryn Hunter). One of the best scenes in the film in my opinion is when Teresa steps onto the escalator near the end of the film and convinces him to do so also. Francis has tried so hard to protect his family from the future without realizing that they have already embraced it, and him finally stepping onto the path is him finally accepting and acknowledging that future. 

I think his fears can also be shown in one of the coolest visual moments in the movie, when Francis envisions a cloud forming a hand and grabbing the moon. The idea of someone taking something you see every day and that gives light in your darkness is a horrifying concept, but one that only comes from an irrational fear of change. No one is taking anything away from Francis, but simply the world is moving on from his ideologies. He feels powerless, and it is Julia, Teresa, and even Caesar who shows him that he can still be happy and thrive in Megalopolis.

Clodio Pulcher is probably the most obvious and honestly funniest character in the film. He is a Trump metaphor. He manipulates the poor in thinking he is for them while benefiting off their suffering, he betrays his own family members, he has weird incest shit, his slogans are things like “Make Rome Great Again” and “Don’t Tread On Me”, he is a sex fiend, he even “grabs one of his sisters by her pussy” during the vesta singing part. Honestly arguably a more accurate portrayal of Trump than The Apprentice (Which is also a very good film). One criticism I have heard of this film and that very much applies to this segment is the “underage girl sex tape” plotline. 

I will admit that it is a weird choice knowing Coppola’s history with child molesters and I feel like it’s definitely the thing that ruins the movie for a lot of people. One thing I want to make clear is that I am not defending Coppola in any way when it comes to the real world stuff, just what the scene means to me and why it doesn’t ruin my enjoyment. I feel like the scene was not to make some bad message about the MeToo movement or anything of that sort, but was to more criticize celebrity worship culture. 

Vesta is seen as this celebrity because she took a pledge to stay a virgin. Many people felt inspired by her pledge and her music and based their personalities off of her, which is seen by how many people love her and also what her being exposed did to the people as seen in the newspaper montage. Also I want to mention that the sex tape was forged by Clodio, not Vesta. The sex tape ruined both Caesar and Vesta. 

Caesar got arrested and lost his powers, and Vesta was seen as a liar not because of any accusations she made, but because of her age and the fact that she was not as “pure” as the world thought. This could honestly be seen as a criticism of misogyny than anything else, the idea that female celebrities must be pure and perfect is something we have seen before in history and I feel this plotline was kind of an example of that. Clodio ruined Vesta’s life, almost similar to how Trump has tried to defame and ruin the lives of many people who oppose him or who associate with the ones who oppose him. Vesta and Caesar clearly had a work relationship, and Clodio spread rumors that ruined their lives and that relationship. 

I don’t believe the intention was to make a statement against MeToo or women, but more talk about the way sex tapes and stuff like that can ruin a person’s life and how they can be faked, I feel like if Coppola was not the director, this part of the movie would not be as polarizing, maybe a little bit, but not to the point that I’ll admit I feel weird defending but I have taken quite a bit of time thinking about it and how it can be seen from a different lens. 

I also want to mention that another kind of funny way he can be compared to Trump is that he stands on a stump carved into a swastika at one point into the film that could be symbolism of how the MAGA party seems to echo quite a bit 

Wow Platinum is a very interesting character. She is the host of the main news program of New Rome and is highly affiliated with the higher ups of New Rome with her and Caesar being in a relationship in the beginning and her having relationships with other high characters like Clodio and Crassus. Wow mostly symbolizes the greedy media corporations we see in the world. 

The ones that use underhanded ways and fear mongering to rise to power and control things. She is only motivated by greed and power. It is possible that judging by the first conversation between her and Caesar, that she may have genuinely loved him and wasn’t as power hungry until the rejection and meeting Crassus, which could be symbolism for how lots of corporations start off with somewhat good intentions, but bad things happen and the greed gets to their heads. 

Most things don’t start off bad, but become bad when things don’t go right or the power and influence they have gets out of hand. As shown with how Wow ends up taking over Crassus and his family.

Crassus is the final character I want to talk about. Crassus is Caesar’s uncle and one of the most influential people in New Rome. He mostly symbolizes the rich elite. One who cares more about money and his legacy than the people. He runs the bank which gives him the advantage to hold power over the people of New Rome. 

Crassus is also very lustful, one of the first things he does is ask Wow to turn the cameras off so they can be alone together during the interview. He also sucks on her shoulder and as a whole is just kind of a freak. Which kinda perfectly represents the rich elite as they usually have quite a bit of scandals and sexual perversions. Crassus does end up changing his ways though, he ends up killing Wow and injuring Clodio and supporting Megalopolis. 

Now, I will admit, he didn’t exactly do this out of the kindness of his heart as his reason for killing Wow and injuring Clodio was because they betrayed him and his reasoning for supporting Megalopolis was so he would be remembered as a generous man. I think this does end up communicating something about the rich though, that no matter what they will only do something for their own self interests and it raises the question of, “If a rich person does something good, even if it is for selfish reasons, is that thing still good?” I feel like there are tons of different angles you can look at that from and we have definetly seen that a lot in celebrity culture and politics before, which makes his arc feel very relevant and compelling.

Now, I have talked about all the characters I really want to talk about, so now I would like to segway into other aspects, mostly dealing with the films storytelling. Megalopolis is a mess, for better or for worse depending on how you see it. The film has tons of insane sequences both visually and conceptually and they will either work for you or they don’t. One major criticism that I must combat though is that the film is AI generated because of the way it tells its story. 

Yes, the film is a mess with a lot happening at once and all happening very fast, but I think calling this AI generated is an insult to artistic expression. Actually, I think Megalopolis is one of the films that I can safely say is not AI generated. 

An AI could not come up with some of the phenomenal and creative visuals and sequences that Coppola has done here. The cloud grabbing the moon, the satellite crashing, the kiss on top of the construction site, the design of Megalopolis and New Rome itself, everything is done in such a creative way that it feels insanely human. It really feels like the ideas of a man who has lived to see many things and this is the culmination of those things. 

It is a film that very much abandons a lot of storytelling cliches and rules, and that is very much not going to work for many, but to say it feels artificial or AI generated feels like a slap in the face to everyone who worked on it, especially when I can think of many beloved films that fit that description more like Deadpool and Wolverine. Also I don’t think an AI could come up with some of the both hilarious but also meaningful dialogue here. The movie is such an emotional rollercoaster that only a human could create.

Another criticism that I do think is fair but I still want to defend is the presentation. This is a very crazy movie stylistically and it is either going to work for you or it isn’t. When I first watched the film, I really loved the more dream like sequences, but hated the realistic city stuff for how flat it kinda looked, but after seeing it a few more times and letting it sit with me, I still feel like it works with what the film is going for and even in these kind of flat segments, the camerawork and cinematography is still great. It uses its environments very well and it is very creatively shot. Everything feels very grand and important with how it uses perspectives and also its score which I personally feel is really great and unique. 

The performances are another very big hot topic with this film. I personally think the performances work for what it is and even in moments where they admittedly aren’t the best, I still find them weirdly endearing or fun. This movie is hilarious and what i love is that I can’t fully tell if its intentional or not which adds to how fascinating it is. I honestly feel like you could interpret this as a genius satire on both politics and filmmaking with how it presents itself. Also there are moments where the performances are genuinely fantastic, I feel like especially Adam Driver and Gianncarlo Espesito’s rival chemistry is great and Aubrey Plaza and Shia Labeouf are clearly having fun and doing as much as possible with their roles. I can definitely see why the film’s presentation is hit or miss, but I personally find it insanely expressional and inspiring.

Now for my final point I want to make, what is Coppola’s message? What is his idea? What are all these insane and crazy ideas all coming together in the craziest ways possibly leading toward? Sure, I mentioned a lot of different things while talking about the characters, but is there really a way to assign one meaning to Megalopolis? And the answer to that is…no, I don’t think there is nor do I think there is supposed to be. 

Megalopolis is about everything and everyone. It is about art, life, time, death, politics, love, corruption, the past, the future, the present, regret, hope, and so much more. I think the best avenue to go down when it comes to trying to pin a message down, is to look at it from an artistic perspective. Megalopolis, in the end, is about why we create. We create to spread love and hope. To teach about the past, present, and future.

To bring light to not so positive things like death, regret, politics, and corruption. And to stop time by becoming a part of history and encapsulating the time period that our art was made in, or even making art about time periods that have happened or have not happened yet. Art is meant to be meaningful, to inspire, to give hope, to educate, and to be connected with. 

In a world where corruption is becoming more and more rampant and education is becoming more and more of an issue, it is up to us artists to push the boundaries and encourage a brighter future. To spark conversations, to make people feel things, to change the world and it is up to the consumers to take that art and continue its legacy by taking what they learned and felt and applying it to their lives. We must do what we can with the time we have to create art and solutions for the world.

So, in the end, Megalopolis is about everything, but especially about art. It is one of the most controversial films out there due to all of its controversies surrounding its release and the contents of the film. But I ask you, the reader who has not seen it yet, to give it a chance. Or maybe if you have already seen it, take what I say in this review and apply it to the film and see what comes out of it. 

Maybe the film is pointless, maybe it’s deep, maybe this review is just as pointless or deep, but in the end there is one thing you definitely cannot say about Megalopolis, and that it isn’t unique. No film has had the courage to do some of the things Megalopolis has done. To exist in a world where it is believed that everything must be the same in terms of quality, and to completely reject those things for the sake of getting its own unique ideas out there, that is art. 

So yes, Megalopolis is a mess, and maybe this review is one too, but so is the world, so is life, and just like the world, Megalopolis is one big, beautiful mess.