From reading the penny arcade blog about it and watching the trailer, it seems to be an arthouse movie that just happens to be made by the most famous people on earth.
You might love it or hate it but most people just won't get it either way
Atlas Shrugged is the conservative wet dream of "what if the rich people that totally do all the work and hold everything together got tired of the poors being so whiny and ungrateful and stopped." It's an-cap fan fiction.
Since others have explained what those stories are about, the juxtaposition is about the idea of the Ubermensch being the savior of humanity, namely one where the Ubermensch are capitalists, is a dead concept in a world where we've let the capitalists run everything and result is an unmitigated disaster.
Turns out, they just want money and power. That's it, they can't save us. Why is this movie venerating them?
I haven't seen it and, although I know it gets panned a lot for various reasons, I highly recommend at least reading the snippets of reviews of the film by critics to get an idea. Even a lot of the so-called positive films are basically 'this movie clearly sucks, but I liked it anyway.'
Basically, it's a very expensive, pretty, and totally incoherent mess of a film that a few people feel is profound but most people think is a colossal piece of shit.
Also, some theaters have a lady stand in front of the screen and lip synch to a specific scene and then leave for some reason. Don't ask me to explain that.
Edit: also, that link provides you with gems like this one from Richard Roeper-
it's a very expensive, pretty, and totally incoherent mess of a film that a few people feel is profound but most people think is a colossal piece of shit.
It sounds like what people should have thought about Inception, but everyone instead apparently fucking loved that movie.
All the hate given toward Megalopolis makes me want to see it. Before that, I wasn't interested just based on the poster.
Nah it’s just an expensive passion project art movie. It was never going to make money, it was Francis Ford Coppola finishing his last project that’s he’s been working on. I quite enjoyed it, despite there being obvious flaws, and many things that would make your average viewer not really care.
It can be a bit dated in references but generally they all land. There isn’t really a single unifying message which is what I would say is the biggest problem. It’s more interested in asking questions and posing that against our current real world than actually trying to answer them.
Apart from that the performances are generally all good, and while the characters feel like archetypes as opposed to clearly defined people, it works, for me at least.
It’s also just really weird. There’s dream sequences but seemingly they aren’t, just a perspective shift of what’s actually happening.
Overall I’d much rather watch Megalopolis than whatever Disney Corporate Movie Product comes out next. I’d prefer misses the mark but tries for something different and interesting, over cookie cutter formulaic plot beats and generic quippy characters.
I just checked it out last night, i had a feeling it was a fun project for the actors, regardless of the overall quality, i wanted to see how they enjoyed performing.
To be honest i didn't hate it. It was longer than it should be, sucked itself off while also having awkward theater kid feeling moments. But i didn't find it as disjointed as everyone talked about, if you watch some media that's figurative you'll be fine, it's mostly more or less just a linear narrative following the main characters.
Honestly it wasn't the worse use of my time, for me. My partners watched with me and one left feeling frustrated at the conclusion (no spoilers) and felt their time was wasted, while the other just could not have their attention held, there were a lot of 'i am deep' shots that if you dont enjoy that you just wont.
All that is to say I didn't pay anything for it, so i had less reason to come in with any expectations. Oh, and I never found I liked the Godfather or his other "classics" so i came in expecting an old man's passion project and that's what i got. The actors felt like they had a blast so i couldn't help watching the whole thing for them.
All and all, if you can see it for free and appreciate it for what it was (a fun bad movie) i think it's fine. If anything i found the ending to be a bit saccharin for a movie that tried to be dark? Some of the parts wrapped up ridiculously im still kind of stunned.