Megalopolis (2024) Lionsgate/Sci-Fi-Drama RT: 138 minutes Rated R (sexual content, nudity, drug use, language, some violence) Director: Francis Ford Coppola Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola Music: Osvaldo Golijov Cinematography: Mihai Malaimare Jr. Release date: September 27, 2024 (US) Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Dustin Hoffman, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, Isabelle Kusman, Bailey Ives, Madeleine Gardella, Balthazar Getty, Romy Mars, Haley Sims, Sonia Ammar.
Rating: ** ½
WTH?
That’s the review I’d like to file about Megalopolis, the new film by Francis Ford Coppola. If pressed, I would add a follow-up question:
Did FFC learn nothing from One from the Heart?
Although succinct and perfectly representative of how I feel, people generally want more information. The problem is I’m not sure how much more I can give you.
Megalopolis has been a pet project of FFC’s since the late 70s. It’s been in and out of development for decades. He had to put it on hold indefinitely after the utter failure of his 1982 musical-drama One from the Heart (it grossed less than $1M against a $26M budget), a creative misstep that put him in debt for the better part of a decade. After many more years of delays, it has finally come to fruition. The results are decidedly mixed. That’s a polite way of saying it’s a mess, a great big mess.
PLOT? WHAT PLOT? What I mean to say is Megalopolis is difficult to explain. There’s a lot going on. I’ll give you the salient points. It’s set in a futuristic city called New Rome, a cross between modern NYC and ancient Rome. There’s this architect Cesar Catalina (Driver, the Star Wars sequels) who has the ability to stop time. He wants to build a utopian city out of a revolutionary new building material called “Megalon”. The mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Esposito, Do the Right Thing), opposes him. He likes the city the way it is. Their relationship gets more complicated when the mayor’s daughter Julia (Emmanuel, the F&F movies) gets romantically involved with Cesar.
There’s also a villain, Cesar’s cousin Clodio (LaBeouf, the Transformers movies). He’s always been jealous of his family’s preferential treatment of Cesar. He’s not on anybody’s side; he wants it all for himself. He’s an evil, conniving SOB. He conspires with equally rotten TV presenter Wow Platinum (Plaza, My Old Ass) to take over the family fortune from his grandfather/her husband Hamilton (Voight, Coming Home).
At some point, an old Soviet satellite falls from the sky and destroys large parts of New Rome. This allows Cesar to move forward with his plan while Cicero continues to try and stop him.
That’s really all I can tell you about the “plot” of Megalopolis. It’s not so much a film as it is a vanity project which, in this case, is synonymous with an exercise in wretched excess. Everything about it is excessive including the cast of characters. There are a lot of them. In addition to the one already mentioned, the other players on the field include Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) as Cesar’s driver (and the film’s narrator), Talia Shire (the Godfather movies) as Cesar’s mother, Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) as one of Cicero’s main guys, Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth) as Cicero’s wife, Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) as Cicero’s fixer and pop singer Grace VanderWaal (AGT) as a popular pop singer (now there’s a stretch!). Look also for Chloe Fineman (SNL), James Remar (The Cotton Club), D.B. Sweeney (Gardens of Stone) and Balthazar Getty (Lost Highway).
FFC’s screenplay is all over the place. Some of it is brilliant, some of it not so much. The good news is Megalopolis is never boring. Some of the visuals are mind-blowing. It has some big ideas about societal structures and how they always collapse thanks to mankind. It’s completely immersed in history, literature and philosophy. It references Shakespeare, Siddhartha, Marcus Aurelius and others. It’s a Greek tragedy, a Baz Luhrmann-esque spectacle and a cautionary tale about how quickly utopia becomes dystopia. It borrows ideas from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, the silent film Metropolis, Caligula and The Matrix. It’s a mind-boggling experience that can’t possibly be absorbed in a single viewing. I’m going to have to watch it again.
I think I’ve said all I can say about Megalopolis. It’s a mess with its confused narrative and half-explored ideas. At the same time, it’s interesting. I’ll give FFC credit for chutzpah. He financed the movie himself to the tune of $120M which I don’t think he’ll make back. It wouldn’t be his first expensive failure. In addition to One from the Heart, he also tanked with The Cotton Club which I happen to love. He’s done some great movies in the past- e.g. The Godfather I & II, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish (so underrated), Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Megalopolis is one of his most ambitious films if not the most. I can’t dismiss it altogether, but I can’t really recommend it either. Let’s just say it’s worth seeing for the sake of saying you’ve seen it.
