Megalopolis

A megalon(g) review
Part 1: April 2, 2026

The Before Times

Megalopolis was released in theaters in 2024 and shortly after vanished from my grasp. Streaming and physical copies of it became a thing of fiction. It was elusive. I must see it, I thought. I had to. There was a reason why people found it so perplexing, so weird. There had to be. Starring Adam Driver… whom I always enjoy watching… (except sorry Adam I won’t be watching that Star Wars trilogy again…). I knew this couldn’t be another Annette… but it could be something. So I held this feeling close, only to be teased with the idea of Megalopolis… Random youtube videos or streamers I would watch would make a reference here and there. I was being drip fed reminders that it existed… somewhere. In a space and time that I was not in. But maybe… some day…. some day I could say I’ve seen Megalopolis!

Fast forward to the year 2026. We were watching a random Youtube channel. My ears perked up. They had watched Megalopolis. They had a physical copy. They were able to get this from like Australia or something. And it worked! on US players! Then fast forward one more time to about a week later. My husband ordered a copy on Ebay. The listing said the 4K DVD would work in US players. I felt ecstatic. I would be one of the few people I would ever know to have seen this movie… to even care about it existing. Two days later, I had slept well enough to stay up that evening to watch the movie. We put the DVD into the PS5… error…. OH NO I thought, but remained calm. If anything, the DVD case would make for a good display. But hark, because the PS5 is weird and stand up… we had just put the disc upside. Flipping it over, we cross our fingers… and then we see the DVD menu screen. We’re in. And we are 2 mins away from watching Megalopolis.

I knew nothing about Megalopolis going in, besides Adam Driver, Buildings, Weird? I made sure to go in as blind as possible. Not looking up reviews or discussing it with anyone (not like I knew who had seen it or even cared to make an opinion on it!). I recently had watched Joker 2, which had bad reviews… and I had hoped that bad could result in a “good bad” experience. But it did not. I tried not to overthink this piece of cinematic art I held in my hand… but I really wanted it to at least overcome that hurdle that Joker 2 could not.

The After Times

As I write this, it’s been less than 24 hours after seeing the movie. I feel like I’m still absorbing what I saw. I am still trying to formulate my opinion, the meaning, was there a lesson? Was it a serious film? Was it camp? With so many good actors… why did they act like that? Who wrote this script? Why did they say “look at that” twice in one scene? Did I like this movie?

Stay tuned for Part 2 when I decide if I can answer any of these questions.