‘Megalopolis’ Review: Francis Ford Coppola Loses Himself in a Messy Matrix of Formless Ideas

Throughout Megalopolis, we see Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) control time, with the ability to stop and start it upon command. This makes him, in the eyes of the public and within the world he lives in, a valuable, important figure in the configuration of the present and the future of this decaying city known as New Rome (aka New York City). It is within these fleeting moments throughout the film’s runtime that you might be reminded of someone else who has the power to control time: the film’s writer-director, Francis Ford Coppola. Over the last fifty plus years, Coppola has been part of some of the most significant moments in cinema’s history, including a four-film run of masterpieces in the 1970s that resulted in creating the greatest American film of all time with The Godfather, what many think is the greatest sequel of all time in The Godfather Part II, the best war film ever with Apocalypse Now, and a standard of the paranoid thriller genre, The Conversation. Throw in The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got Married, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Rainmaker, and you have one of the richest filmographies a director has ever created in Hollywood history.

Each one of these films has moments where I’ve felt time stop, as nothing else around me existed as the images I saw on screen played in front of my eyes. Moments like Gene Hackman playing the saxophone at the end of The Conversation, Marlon Brando’s monologue in the darkness within Apocalypse Now, seeing Gary Oldman’s Dracula creature in its truest form for the first time, or watching a father and son express the regret of passing the family business and its dangerous burdens on to the next generation in The Godfather. They become imprinted into your memory, inspiring you to see, discuss, create more art like what you’ve witnessed, and find that feeling of being transported away from the troubles of life. It’s corny to say, but that is the magic of movies and the insightful minds that create these visual dream worlds. Which brings me back to Coppola’s latest film, Megalopolis, a film built on the back of his persistence to bring it to life for close to forty years, and make a fable that takes a look at our world in a different way in order to see if we can have a conversation about what the future can be. The end result is one of the most confusing, obtuse pieces of cinema we’ve seen in some time.  A hollow, dysfunctional vanity project that throws just about every thought its creator has ever had in his head at the screen all at once, and we see none of it connect. 

A conflict of ideals lies at the center of Megalopolis, as we find Cesar, an idealistic, genius architect, granted a license by the American federal government to rebuild New Rome into something sustainable for everyone to live in for the future. While he is a brilliant mind, and extremely popular amongst the people, he poses a threat to those in power, in particular Mayor Franklyn Cicero (a villainous, one-note performance from Giancarlo Esposito), a conservative authoritative figure who wants things in the city to stay the way they are, continuing to tighten his grip over those in positions of vulnerability and poverty. In a showcase scene to lay out their plans for the future, Coppola pits the men on an unstable platform above a model of the beloved city they want control over. The Mayor introduces a new casino and all the bells and whistles that go with it, while Cesar lays out his plan, along with reciting Hamlet, his vision, his new city, his idea of a utopia: Megalopolis. Built mostly out of using Megalon (a new material Cesar found that helps him obtain his control over time), this vision of a perfect place to live means tearing down locations around the city, leaving many homeless, unable to survive the wait for Megalopolis to be built. We briefly see the outsiders’ perspective throughout the film, but it is mostly used to strike anger and fear to either side of Cesar or the Mayor’s argument. Surrounding the proceeding as Cesar speaks are members of his family, who also have control and the money he pours into this expensive endeavor. His uncle, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), is a brittle old man, of mind and body, who controls the banks of New Rome and essentially gets to do whatever he desires. His grandkids, led by the wildcard of the family, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), aren’t interested in what Cesar wants. Rather, they prefer to run amuck around New Round, drinking and partying every night and going home and sleeping with each other (a rumor that is stated by the film’s tabloids but as we see, there is a lot of truth behind those claims). New Rome has become crazier and crazier as time has gone on, and it is all about to crumble if something isn’t done.

Enter Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the loving daughter of the Mayor, who sees Cesar’s project as something worth getting behind. When she offers her services to him in a meeting of the minds, he dismisses her for nothing more than a friend of his cousins, telling her to “go back to the clubs” (one of the most hilarious line readings of the year) with the Pulcher sisters (one whom she is having a fling with), and leave the world building to him. But she doesn’t back down, showing him that she is smarter than her extracurricular activity would suggest, able to understand the proper science and delicate nature needed to see the vision that Cesar has for Megalopolis. As time goes on, the two form a romantic bond, with Cesar needing to figure out if he can love the girl who is the daughter of his biggest political and personal rival. After all, he was put on trial for the murder of his wife, who was the inspiration behind Megalopolis and the discovery of Megalon. But in finding Julia, Cesar is able to love again and see the full creation to its rightful, purposeful endgame, where people can live in a better future that only dreams are made of. While it is a touching sentiment, the actual visuals of the film are massively innocent, with visions and final versions of Megalopolis looking like something out of a very cheap 1990s sci-fi, futuristic film. Though the film cost $120 million dollars, and the production design is exceptional, the visual effects are an eyesore that you can’t ignore, and are a big reason why the film fumbles in capturing the supposed groundbreaking vision of the future Coppola is trying to display. What does work is the dynamic between Driver (who unsurprising the best performance in the film) and Emmanuel, whose entire relationship is inspired by the director’s marriage to his late wife Eleanor, with Cesar stating that Julia is his creative inspiration, for which none of the creation of Megalopolis would exist without her. It’s a touching note to put into this chaotic machine of a movie, making these moments of love stand above the noise that surrounds the rest of the picture.

Outside the focus on Cesar and Julia is the mess that is Megalopolis. Choppy editing throughout the lengthy two hours and eighteen-minute movie makes you feel like one coherent thought can’t be explored within the range of just thirty seconds. From one minute we are talking about the fate of the world, to then a love triangle between Cesar, Julia and Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza, who is a TV presenter rejected by Cesar and marries his Uncle out of spite), to a massive party scene involving the QR codes and billionaires donating to a virgin pop-star, to the background on the investigation that the Mayor did to try and put Cesar in jail for wrongly killing his wife, to a satellite falling out of the sky killing millions, to Clodio going full Donald Trump and creating a mob amongst the people, who put an assignation attempt out on Cesar; it is all too much for one movie to handle cohesively. Even if you were able to just take these plot points or creative directions one at a time rather than as a whole experience, they are still too inconsistent in the screenplay for the audience to connect with what is going on the screen. At a certain point, the level of unexplained, undeveloped character motivations found within the ongoing, mind-numbing story all just becomes repetitious. For spending nearly an entire lifetime and a massive fortune to come up with the resources to create Megalopolis, Coppola’s passion project results in a colossal waste of not just his talent, but pretty much everyone involved.

While Driver is the best performance in the film, his work is nowhere near the stellar expectations he’s known for over the past ten years. Esposito and Emmanuel are bland throughout the film, as the former is just an angry villain all the way to the unearned change of heart in the end, and the latter floats from scene to scene, line to line with inconsistent commitment to the character she was given on the page. But the worst of the bunch are the trio of LaBeouf, Plaza, and Voight, who are trying to bring a level of camp to a self-serious film that it doesn’t really need. Between Voight’s disgusting drunk acting, LaBeouf becoming a Proud Boy (in eye rolling fashion) to get revenge on his cousin, and Plaza singing the news on her TV show and going over the top with every line reading, their work is part of a larger ensemble of terribly selected actors for roles that either don’t suit them or just waste their talent. Throw in random, laughable appearances from Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, and it is clear that by the end of this journey, not a single performance given comes out of Megalopolis looking good.

Much like the demise of Plaza’s Wow Platinum, Megalopolis is an arrow to the heart of anyone who is a fan of the filmmaker’s previous work, as well as to the minds of those looking for an interesting thinkpiece on the future of cinema. It’s not a movie that hurt those other films at all; they are still some of the best movies ever made. But to see Coppola put this much effort into this empty exercise, one has to think that he is like Cesar at the midway point of the film, and he too has lost the ability to make us feel as if time has stopped; the magic is gone and he no longer has it. It is a sad notion to think about, but it is an even worse one to witness on giant IMAX screens across the world. The heartbreaking, disappointing fall of a cinematic hero, at the hands of his own tedious manifestation.

Grade: D

Lionsgate will release Megalopolis only in theaters on September 27.