How could this happen? Last year, master director Francis Ford Coppola returned to the big screen with a new film: Megalopolis. The two and a half hour sci-fi epic greatly offended some film fans. Because it hasn’t become a new The Godfather or Apocalypse Now.
Instead, Megalopolis joins Coppola’s idiosyncratic creative phase one that has given us works like Jugend ohne Jugend, Twixt and Tetro in the past. No wonder Megalopolis received extremely mixed reception. The reviews range from misunderstood masterpiece to embarrassing total failure.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video: Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi epic Megalopolis in the home cinema
If you missed Megalopolis in the cinema or take another look at it in the golden light shining sci-fi film If you want to throw it, you now have the opportunity to do so. Coppola’s $120 million passion project has been available to stream on Amazon Prime Video for a few days now.
The story of Megalopolis takes you to an alternative version of our world, where a city exists that looks suspiciously like New York. This is New Rome, a metropolis on the edge. The idealistic architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) pursues a daring vision of the future, but clashes with the conservative mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).
You can watch the trailer for Megalopolis here:
Megalopolis – Trailer 2 (German) HD
While the two men duel in relentless power games, the situation becomes more complicated when Cesar meets the mayor’s daughter and falls in love with her. Can Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) bring reconciliation or will the situation finally escalate? The future of New Rome is at stake.
It’s rare to see a sci-fi blockbuster as artistically unfiltered as Megalopolis
Megalopolis is a Greek tragedy, a great love story and an attempt at one cinematic utopiawho struggles with herself and yet never thinks for a second about stopping dreaming. Coppola, who financed the film entirely from his own pocket despite its considerable budget, proves himself to be an idealist of cinema with Megalopolis and lives out his vision of it without inhibition.
For that alone it’s worth taking a look at the film. It happens far too rarely that a director has so much freedom on a project of this size. Megalopolis is pure uncompromising. 100 percent unfiltered Coppola. You probably can’t be prepared for a film like this. But why should you when you can just let it overwhelm you?
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