Megaville (1990)

Film review #697

Director: Peter Lehner

SYNOPSIS: In a future where all media is outlawed except in the city Megaville, an agent of the media police is sent on an undercover assignment in Megaville to stop an underground crime ring which illegally distributes media. He is secretly implanted with a control chip that allows him to be controlled at will by his superiors, as a wider conspiracy emerges…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Megaville is a 1990 sci-fi film. It stars Billy Zane in his first lead role as Raymond Palinov, who is a member of the media police, who enforce a ban on all forms of media in the wastelands. After he experiences strange blackouts and episodes. His boss offers Raymond a new assignment to go undercover and crack a criminal ring that is smuggling media out of Megaville, the only place where it is legal. What follows is your very typical setting of a cyberpunk-thriller-dystopia-thriller that are plentiful in the realm of low budget films of the time. What perhaps stands out is that the plot is way too complicated, and filled with way too many things going on. Between the undercover operation, the mind control device secretly implanted in Raymond, the back-and-forth between the different characters, it all gets a bit too much and impossible to follow. The plot is driven only through tired scenes of dialogue and some vague action out in the desert which offer very little.

Perhaps the biggest stand out in this film is Megaville itself: described as a sprawling urban state of the future, but in reality it’s…Los Angeles. We see some montage footage of Raymond cruising around Megaville and it’s clearly L.A.. There’s no attempt to hide that fact; you can see the landmarks and famous buildings everywhere. Also it doesn’t really look like the future or anything: it’s just present-day L.A. It’s difficult to take any kind of worldbuilding seriously when it’s so obvious the filmmakers just stepped outside and started rolling the cameras. The twist at the end provides a little bit of interest, but by then everything is so convoluted that it’s difficult to relate it back to the plot, and the finale is just once again another shootout in the middle of the desert. Megaville tries to make a film of some substance and intrigue, but overcomplicates the story with way too many elements that can’t be followed, and also manages to avoid any kind of worldbuilding that would create a unique setting. Really not worth watching.