Megalopolis Vomitus

When art is attempted at such a self-possessed level, the only one who “gets it” is the artist. The rest of us lose $24.

Filmmaker Michael Cimino’s 1980 passion project, Heaven’s Gate, had United Artists’ backing but lost $37 million to a 219-minute, sybaritic dream turned dustbowl. (RIP Kris Kristofferson.)

Kevin Costner’s labor of love, The Postman (1997), had critics laughing their way to the bank at the cost of $50 million. 

Francis Ford Coppola may have a canon of groundbreaking ingenuity (The Godfather series, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation), but he is also human and prone to spend $120 million of his own winery profits on a 40-year dream of melding Hamlet and Roman credo with today’s so-called enhancements in computer-generated imagery.

His story about utopian promise against an urban landscape of greed is intentionally convoluted and loose ended. So, despite your preconceived notions and patience with such a venture, every character is convoluted and loose ended. Nothing makes sense, and it’s quite boring at it.

A seasoned all-star cast of Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Voight, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, and Dustin Hoffman appear as if in a costume party where you leave your sense of humor at the door. There are architects, mayors, mistresses, journalists, and “fixers.” Not one character is supplied with context or resolution. There are sequences (like the wedding ceremony) that go on and on without anything going on, and then there are transitions that seem pivotal to the story that last but a minute.

Megalopolis is an overstuffed pillow of a movie, packed with incoherent dialogue, fleshless characters, and shoddy CGI—the very technology Coppola was waiting on to fulfill his vision. And, it’s a vision only he will appreciate.

To the rest of us, it is a master class in recycling your own saliva or watching yourself pat your back in front of a mirror.

5 stars for following your dreams, -4 for losing everyone’s time, money, soul, and lunch.

Megalopolis (2024) * out of *****

Have you seen it? Was it just me, or was that the worst movie of the year?

Recovering,

RB