59
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichAnd “Megalopolis” — in its most dazzling and audacious moment — breaks through the screen to bridge the gap between life and thought, art and reality.
- 80The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinAubrey Plaza is fantastic in this full-body sensory bath movie which follows a struggle for power among the elites of New Rome.
- 80Rolling StoneDavid FearRolling StoneDavid FearSay what you will about this grand gesture at filtering Edward Gibbon’s history lessons through a lens darkly, it is exactly the movie that Coppola set out to make — uncompromising, uniquely intellectual, unabashedly romantic (upper-case and lower-case R), broadly satirical yet remarkably sincere about wanting not just brave new worlds but better ones.
- 70Los Angeles TimesJoshua RothkopfLos Angeles TimesJoshua RothkopfOnce you let go of the understandable dream of Coppola returning with another masterpiece, there is much to enjoy in “Megalopolis,” especially its cast members, leaning into their moments with an abandon that was probably a job requirement.
- 67The A.V. ClubJason GorberThe A.V. ClubJason GorberMegalopolis is a magical, meandering, maddening construction, one that demonstrates that the process of experimentation is in and of itself both deeply entwined with, as well as above, dualistic notions like success and failure.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyIt’s windy and overstuffed, frequently baffling and way too talky, quoting Hamlet and The Tempest, Marcus Aurelius and Petrarch, ruminating on time, consciousness and power to a degree that becomes ponderous. But it’s also often amusing, playful, visually dazzling and illuminated by a touching hope for humanity.
- 50VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeTo call this garish, idea-bloated monstrosity a mere “fable” is to grossly undersell the project’s expansive insights into art, life and legacy.
- 40The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawFor me this is a passion project without passion: a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film, full of high-school-valedictorian verities about humanity’s future. It’s simultaneously hyperactive and lifeless, lumbered with some terrible acting and uninteresting, inexpensive-looking VFX work which achieves neither the texture of analogue reality nor a fully radical, digital reinvention of existence.
- 40ColliderChase HutchinsonColliderChase HutchinsonMuch like the city being built in the film, it’s all more interesting in theory than it ever is in actuality. Now that we will all have the chance to take it in for ourselves, the greatest revelation is that there just isn’t that much there to see.
- 40Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonAdam Driver brings a brooding energy to the role of a tortured genius architect seeking to craft a modern utopia in a city threatened by mindless spectacle and rampant greed, but Megalopolis is stymied by arbitrary plotting and numbing excess. One can feel Coppola’s anger and sorrow over the decline of his beloved America, but narrative coherence is far less apparent.