{"id":4193,"date":"2024-09-28T20:02:09","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T20:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2024-10-19T21:45:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:45:31","slug":"megalopolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/28\/megalopolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Megalopolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Megalopolis<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Sci-Fi-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 138 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sexual content, nudity, drug use, language, some violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Francis Ford Coppola\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Osvaldo Golijov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mihai Malaimare Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 27, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

WTH?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the review I\u2019d like to file about Megalopolis<\/strong>, the new film by Francis Ford Coppola. If pressed, I would add a follow-up question:<\/p>\n

Did FFC learn nothing from One from the Heart?<\/p>\n

Although succinct and perfectly representative of how I feel, people generally want more information. The problem is I\u2019m not sure how much more I can give you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Megalopolis<\/strong> has been a pet project of FFC\u2019s since the late 70s. It\u2019s 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\u2019s a polite way of saying it\u2019s a mess, a great big mess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0PLOT? WHAT PLOT? What I mean to say is Megalopolis<\/strong> is difficult to explain. There\u2019s a lot going on. I\u2019ll give you the salient points. It\u2019s set in a futuristic city called New Rome, a cross between modern NYC and ancient Rome. There\u2019s 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 \u201cMegalon\u201d. 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\u2019s daughter Julia (Emmanuel, the F&F movies) gets romantically involved with Cesar.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s also a villain, Cesar\u2019s cousin Clodio (LaBeouf, the Transformers movies). He\u2019s always been jealous of his family\u2019s preferential treatment of Cesar. He\u2019s not on anybody\u2019s side; he wants it all for himself. He\u2019s 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).<\/p>\n

\u00a0At 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s really all I can tell you about the \u201cplot\u201d of Megalopolis<\/strong>. It\u2019s 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\u2019s driver (and the film\u2019s narrator), Talia Shire (the Godfather movies) as Cesar\u2019s mother, Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) as one of Cicero\u2019s main guys, Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth) as Cicero\u2019s wife, Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) as Cicero\u2019s fixer and pop singer Grace VanderWaal (AGT) as a popular pop singer (now there\u2019s a stretch!). Look also for Chloe Fineman (SNL), James Remar (The Cotton Club), D.B. Sweeney (Gardens of Stone) and Balthazar Getty (Lost Highway).<\/p>\n

\u00a0FFC\u2019s screenplay is all over the place. Some of it is brilliant, some of it not so much. The good news is Megalopolis<\/strong> 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\u2019s completely immersed in history, literature and philosophy. It references Shakespeare, Siddhartha, Marcus Aurelius and others. It\u2019s a Greek tragedy, a Baz Luhrmann-esque spectacle and a cautionary tale about how quickly utopia becomes dystopia. It borrows ideas from Ayn Rand\u2019s The Fountainhead, the silent film Metropolis, Caligula and The Matrix. It\u2019s a mind-boggling experience that can\u2019t possibly be absorbed in a single viewing. I\u2019m going to have to watch it again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think I\u2019ve said all I can say about Megalopolis<\/strong>. It\u2019s a mess with its confused narrative and half-explored ideas. At the same time, it\u2019s interesting. I\u2019ll give FFC credit for chutzpah. He financed the movie himself to the tune of $120M which I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll make back. It wouldn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019s Dracula. Megalopolis<\/strong> is one of his most ambitious films if not the most. I can\u2019t dismiss it altogether, but I can\u2019t really recommend it either. Let\u2019s just say it\u2019s worth seeing for the sake of saying you\u2019ve seen it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megalopolis (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Sci-Fi-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 138 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sexual content, nudity, drug use, language, some violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Francis Ford Coppola\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Osvaldo Golijov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mihai Malaimare Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 27, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Megalopolis-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5085,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions\/5085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}