'Megalopolis:' What critics are saying about the polarizing new Francis Ford Coppola film

Elsa Fernández-Santos - Spanish daily El País

Marta Medina - Spanish daily El Confidencial

'Megalopolis' gets mixed reviews

At first glance, 'Megalopolis' is the Sistine Chapel of film legend Francis Ford Coppola. A lifelong project, he’s poured over 40 years and more than $120 million of his own money into it. Naturally, the anticipation was off the charts.

A divisive passion project

And the initial viewings of 'Megalopolis' haven’t disappointed, or at least they haven’t disappointed in creating a buzz. Both audiences and critics are passionately split, with opinions ranging from calling it a cinematic revolution to deeming it pretentious, annoying, and even hard to watch.

Masterpiece or major letdown?

To get the scoop firsthand, it’s best to go straight to the source and see what the critics are saying about a project that has the film community completely polarized.

David Ehrlich - IndieWire

"A clunky, garish, and transcendently sincere manifesto about the role of an artist at the end of an empire. It doesn’t just speak to Coppola’s philosophy, it embodies it to its bones. To quote one of the sharper non-sequiturs from a script that’s swimming in them: 'When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free.'"

Image: Twitter - David Ehrlich

Damon Wise - Deadline

"A mad eco-sci-fi blockbuster... 'Megalopolis' represents a rare kind of event movie that reinvents the possibilities of cinema... Coppola breaks many of the cardinal rules of filmmaking in the film’s 138 minutes, but it upholds the most important one: It is never, ever boring, and it will inspire just as many artists as the audiences it will alienate."

Image: Twitter - Damon Wise

Bilge Ebiri - Vulture

"A work of absolute madness.... Megalopolis might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy every single bats--- second of it."

Image: Twitter - Bilge Ebiri

David Fear - Rolling Stone

"Does it sometimes feel as if it’s distilling decades’ worth of book-club readings and coffee-klatch conversations into a tightly packed two hours? Yes. Was it worth the wait? Dear god, yes."

Image: Twitter - David Fear

James Mottram - Radio Times

"If this is to be Coppola’s last movie, he goes out as a true artist who pursued his vision – rather like Driver’s Cesar – to the very end." Four out of five stars.

Image: Twitter - James Mottram

Now, the negative reviews

If you are now dying to watch the movie, you'll want to keep reading. Those were the positive reviews. The truth is that after its release, negative reviews are now outnumbering the positive ones two to one. And of course, some are just mixed.

Peter Bradshaw - The Guardian

"Coppola’s passion project is megabloated and megaboring." Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Image: Twitter - Peter Bradshaw

Richard Lawson - Vanity Fair

"A passion project gone horribly wrong... a near unmitigated disaster... a choppy ramble of a movie, stuffed with poorly elucidated ideas. It’s as if someone has spent $120 million—more money than most Americans make in a year!—to film the chicken scratch scrawls of a notebook, hastily staged with actors and garish green-screen effects. It is, I’m afraid, tedious nonsense."

Image: Twitter - Richard Lawson

Tim Grierson - Screen Daily

"'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."

Image: Twitter - Tim Grierson

Chase Hutchinson - Collider

"Much 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 to see."

Image: Twitter - Chase Hutchinson

Elsa Fernández-Santos - Spanish daily El País

"The fall of the Coppola empire. The project that has obsessed the filmmaker for the past 40 years ends up being a colossal mess. It suffers from the same excesses it aims to criticize."

Image: Twitter - Alberto Olmos

Marta Medina - Spanish daily El Confidencial

"It’s an arduous task for each viewer to try to connect the thousands of ideas Coppola proposes in a monologue that is, at the very least, bewildering. All utopias collapse into utopia, they say, and 'Megalopolis' is yet another example of that."

Image: Twitter - Marta Medina

Joshua Rothkopf - Los Angeles Times

"A wildly ambitious, overstuffed city epic... once you let go of the understandable dream of Coppola returning with another masterpiece, there is much to enjoy in “Megalopolis,” especially its cast members,

Image: Twitter - Joshua Rothkopf

Peter Debruge - Variety

"Like such slow-to-evolve population centers, 'Megalopolis' is positively awe-inspiring in some places and an absolute eyesore in others, until you pull back and try to take it all in."

Image: Twitter - Variety

David Rooney - The Hollywood Reporter

"I can’t say I was always engaged over its two hours-plus run time, but I was always curious about where it was going next. Is it a good movie? Not by a long stretch. But it’s not one that can be easily dismissed, either."

Image: Twitter - David Rooney