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Megalopolis Review: A Work of Absolute Madness

There is nothing in Francis Ford Coppola’s perhaps-final testament that feels like something out of a “normal” movie.

He possesses tremendous powers — in the film’s bravura opening sequence, we see him stop time as he leans precariously off the Chrysler Building — but he’s also an egomaniac, absorbed in his own brilliance and unable to compromise or care for those below him. There are echoes here of the central conflict in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the granddaddy of all City of the Future movies, with its own clash between an aloof, opportunistic leader and a brilliant, possibly mad scientist, ultimately brought together by love. By the time the aforementioned live-audience element arrives (and who knows if that will be replicated when the movie gets released in actual theaters), it’s certainly notable, but it’s so in keeping with the film’s incessant, go-for-broke quality that the audience accepts it matter-of-factly: Oh, so that happened.

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