Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, a sci-fi feature is gaining much attraction. The movie got a 7-minute standing ovation as it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. But the film, which is one of the most ambitious projects of Coppola is not getting the same amount of applause from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
What Critics Saying About Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis?
Nathalie Emmanuel and Adam Driver in Megalopolis (2024). Image Credit: Mihai Malaimare /IMDb
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with 38%, though at the time of writing this article, it’s standing at 50%. However, critics do not seem to be going soft with the movie.
Despite receiving a 7-minute standing ovation, it was also panned by critics and got booed at the Cannes Film Festival.
Here are some of the top reviews from critics—
“This is a passion project without passion: a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film, full of high-school-valedictorian verities about humanity’s future.” — Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
“Megalopolis is anything but lazy, and while so many of the ideas don’t pan out as planned, this is the kind of late-career statement devotees wanted from the maverick, who never lost his faith in cinema.” — Peter Debruge, Variety
“This is the junkiest of junk-drawer movies, a slapped together hash of Coppola’s many disparate inspirations. What really tanks the movie, though, is its datedness.” — Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“At worst, Megalopolis feels somewhat agonizing to sit through. At its best, it’s quite boring.” — Nicholas Bell, IONCINEMA.com
“This is 138 stultifying minutes of ill-conceived themes, half-finished scenes, nails-along-the-blackboard performances, word-salad dialogue and ugly visuals all seemingly in search of a story that isn’t there.” — Kevin Maher, Times (UK)
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The film boasts an ensemble cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and Nathalie Emmanuel. The cast also includes Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, and Jason Schwartzman.
Francis Ford Coppola Shares His View on Self-Financed Movies and Its Future
According to Coppola, the traditional studio system will not be here anymore as they don’t make good movies. Sharing his thoughts on the current studio system during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his $120 million self-financed film Megalopolis. “I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt,” Coppola said
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Also, Coppola said that this movie is his passion project and he always wanted to make this feature. “The job is not so much to make good movies, the job is to make sure that they pay their debt obligations. Obviously, new companies like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, they have plenty of money. So, it might be that the studios we knew for so long are not to be here in the future anymore.”
Coppola started his preparation for the film’s concept in the early 1980s, and as the film was finally being shown to the world, there was no amount of happiness he felt that could be described in words.
