Megalopolis had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. It is Francis Ford’s first film since Twixt in 2011.

going through some first reactions

From the reviews as well as the first reactions coming in via tweets, it is clear that the early talks about the film are mainly positive, with a few cons.

According to deadlineDamon Wise’s film is a “mad modern masterwork that reinvents the possibilities of cinema”. He said the film was “something wrong; Unruly, exaggerated and ready to show off, like a moth drawn to a flame”, adding that it is an “astonishing achievement, the work of a master artist”.

After seeing the film, Variety’s Matt Donnelly was more candid with his thoughts. “Still a work in progress on #Megalopolis, but at tonight’s Cannes premiere, I went to the restroom after about an hour because I was losing my mind,” he tweeted. There was a man leaning against the wall in such a way that I began to worry that he needed some medicine. He looked at me and said, ‘This is a nightmare.’

indiewire Megalopolis was described by the director as “the most daring and open-hearted of his many attempts to stop time before it’s too late”. It labeled the film a “wild and delirious fever dream that inspires new hope for the future of movies”.

Francis Ford has invested $120 million of his own money in the project, which comes with a VFX-heavy shoot.

Film critic Jason Gerber says the film is “part fever dream, part exercise in indulgence”. “Not since Babylon has such bold boldness been born, here nurtured without the help of a troublesome studio. Jason tweeted, a diatribe about a dying empire, the death knell of a cinema giant, wobbly, flailing, yet occasionally charming.

David Rooney, chief film critic of The Hollywood Reporter, felt that the film is “windy and overstuffed, frequently baffling and overly talky”, adding, “but it is also frequently entertaining, playful, visually dazzling.” and is illuminated with a poignant hope for humanity”.

“In essence, one can be somewhat glad that something like this exists and that we all get to see what Coppola has been cooking up for decades. The problem is that, in execution, it’s a sloppy “narrative” (as stated in the opening title card) that plays more like a farce,” said collider’s Review from Chase Hutchinson.

Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine says, “Megalopolis is overwhelmed by the ideas of a precocious child, inspired and dazzled and perhaps a little lost in all the possibilities of the world before him”.

In fact, GuardianPeter Bradshaw of The Sun gave the film two stars, calling it hyperactive and lifeless. Peter wrote, “And is filled with some terrible acting and uninteresting, cheap-looking VFX work that neither achieves the texture of analog reality nor its completely radical, digital reinvention of existence.”

About Megalopolis

Megalopolis is set in a futuristic city similar to the Roman Empire, and tells the story of an architect named Caesar, played by Adam Driver, who seeks to rebuild New York City as a utopia after a disaster. Along with Driver, the film also stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, and Jason Schwartzman.

Francis Ford had been trying to build a megalopolis for decades. He used $120 million from his wine empire to produce the film. At the Cannes Film Festival, it is competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, which Coppola previously won twice for The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979).