MEGALOPOLIS

What happens when Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” meets Ancient Rome meets Inception, but then completely forgets Inception and only uses 5% of Time in a Bottle? You get Megalopolis. A film that promises a lot—time manipulation, grandiosity, Roman history, existential drama—but delivers a jumbled, sometimes unintentional, head-scratcher. Starring Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, and Giancarlo Esposito, with a few notable drive-bys by Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, DB “Toe Pick” Sweeney, and Jason Schwartzman, Megalopolis is many things, but unforgettable might not be one of them. In this episode, I break down what went wrong, what was confusing, and why a watched Megalopolis never boils.