Style but no substance. Not as funny as it should be. Not as deep as it wants to be.<br /><br />This is another in the genre of films about the difficulties of filmmaking. A young filmaker is hired to finish a campy 60s sci-fi movie called Codename:Dragonfly. Think Barbarella, or Danger Diabolique.<br /><br />But Jeremy Davies is an angst-ridden filmmaker. He's no hack he's an artist. The movie he wants to make is a diary of his life. Hardly original.<br /><br />All the characters outside of Jeremy Davies filmmaker are as thin as rice-paper. Characters that might be interesting, such as his father, his doppelganger, or Jason Schwarzmann as a hack director are introduced and then shown the door without adding a thing.<br /><br />This movie is full of eye candy but when compared to other films about filmmakers such as Stardust Memories or 8 1/2 it pales in comparison. Those movies are funny, provocative with well-developed characters. Those movies have lessons that apply outside<br /><br />The movie wants to be comic and campy but its just derivative and there is not one funny scene. The filmmakers describe it as a send-up but what's the satirical target? The actors say it's an homage but I think I would rather a full-length version of Codename:Dragonfly.<br /><br />Coppola is clearly amused by the setting as is evident by the visual humor of the sci-fi movie within a movie. But he fails to share why we should be amused.<br /><br />Outside of the sci-fi movie its just a mess. There are continuity errors, the filmmaker chooses a sci-fi weapon after its already been chosen. What?<br /><br />Just because he has a scene were the filmmaker is confronted by the critics complaining about the lack of story, lack of a point, a scene where he admits empty cleverness does not mean that he has addressed those criticisms.<br /><br />I guess if your Roman Coppola you can get away with making a movie about an angst-ridden idealistic filmmaker who doesn't know what he wants to say and so ends up saying nothing. In that sense it may be considered autobiograhical.<br /><br />I would watch it at Circuit City on a wall full of TVs if I had a choice. Watch the 15-minute Codename:Dragonfly movies included on the DVD as extras and then send it back.