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This review was originally published out of the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2024.
We are recirculating it now timed toMegalopolisstheatrical release.
But the movie also feels older than that.
There is nothing inMegalopolisthat feels like something out of a normal movie.
It has its own logic and cadence and vernacular.
At one point, Adam Driver does the entire To be or not to be soliloquy fromHamlet.
Im not exactly sure.
But it sure sounds good.
Dont let the now destroy the forever, Cesar insists to the mayor.
She is drawn to his brilliance, but of course, a romance also blossoms between them.
There, as inMegalopolis, the citizens were at the mercy of the elites hedonism and warfare.
At their best, these scenes have an otherworldly inventiveness that gets at their intoxicating, anything-goes appeal.
At their worst, they come across as choppy shots of awkward extras gyrating listlessly.
Megalopolisis often caught between its own dreams and what is merely possible.
It certainly has moments of dazzling invention.
The occasional dissolves that made the fever dreams ofApocalypse NowandBram Stokers Draculaso gorgeously disorienting here take over entire sequences.
In those pictures, these were stylistic flourishes.
Here, its all flourish, all the time.
But then there come scenes that feel rushed, undernourished, and underpopulated.
At times, we can tell.
Crowd scenes can be sparse.
Seemingly major characters drop out of the story.
Maybe there are future cuts of this film that will flesh things out more.
Or maybe sometimes the reality of the now just defeats the possibilities of the forever.
Megalopolisis filled with quotations and lines that feel like quotations.
So, its a fake quote!
Over and over again, he very consciously leaps over the edge with each new project.
He admitted to going insane makingApocalypse Now.
Ivewritten elsewherethat I thought hed lost his mind withBram Stokers Dracula, a movie I now consider a masterpiece.
And so, hes done it again, and perhaps exceeded himself.Megalopolismight be the craziest thing Ive ever seen.
And Id be lying if I said I didnt enjoy every single batshit second of it.
