Megalopolis seems to be one of those “love it or hate it” films. Sitting at 49% on Rotten Tomatoes right now:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/megalopolis
So of course I had to see it to make up my own mind about it.
It is a brilliant, beautiful film, that likely nobody will “get” for 10 years or so, and by the time they do get it, all the societal and political references will be so dated, it will need footnotes, much in the same way that Gulliver’s Travels needs footnotes today.
https://studycorgi.com/satire-in-gullivers-travels-by-jonathan-swift/
The film is probably 75% Shakespearian archetypes, to the point where I could point out “Ok, that character is from x, this character is from y” and that’s before Caesar quotes the entire “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy from Hamlet.
The remaining 25% is kind of an inverted “Atlas Shrugged”, where the main character invents a miracle building material, but instead of squirrling it away for his own private enrichment, dedicates himself to using it to build a city of the future to benefit everyone.
Adam Driver plays Caesar, Inventor and Architect
Giancarlo Esposito plays Cicero, mayor of New Rome and chief antagonist to Caesar
Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia, Cicero’s daughter. Goes to work for Caesar to get back at dad, falls in love.
Jon Voight as Crassus, 80+ year old media mogul and financier. Kingmaker.
Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, very blonde “news” host. Initially involved with Caesar, marries the 3x older Crassus.
Shia LeBeouf as Clodio, Crassus’ money hungry grandson, cousin to Caesar. Has hated Caesar since they were kids.
I’m not going to lie, there are parts of the film that are VERY hard to wrap your brain around, particularly when Caesar goes on a drug and alcohol fueled bender.
Overall, I loved the look and feel of the film, feel the need to watch it again, there are parts that I need to freeze frame when it inevitably is available at home.
For references, Crassus is very clearly Rupert Murdoch with all of his potential heirs cutting each others throats for a slice of the empire. Bonus for the creepy marriage to a much younger wife.
Clodio is clearly Trump, down to the fascist symbolism, populist messaging, and “Make America Great Again”.
I actually didn’t dislike it that much, but I think the visuals kinda fell apart near the end with a cg overload that diminishes some of the appeal of the movie. I don’t think that part will ever age well. I also think some concepts didn’t really have any significance and couldn’t follow what the point of them was. Time control for example. The megalon prosthetic recovery. Etc. I think FFC had a vision and he wanted to produce it no ifs, ands or buts. That probably had as detrimental an impact as positive. There are some points where someone just telling him to tone it down could’ve done the movie some good. I did like the allusions to Rome, as a great republic (and later empire) that collapsed and how modern America resembles that with decadence and corruption. That vestal virgin sh*t was creepy as hell tho and I have no idea what the point of it was as it was basically forgotten 10 minutes later.