MEGALOPOLIS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Le Beouf, Jon Voight, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, James Remar, Talia Shire, D B Sweeney, Balthazar Getty, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman.
From revered Oscar winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, etc) comes Megalopolis, a sprawling tale of ambition, greed, hubris, power, corruption, politics, class and family. The film is set in a futuristic alternative reimagining of New York, now renamed New Rome and modeled on the ancient Roman Empire. The city is in the grip of a financial crisis as powerful figures struggle for control.
The film stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catalina, an architect who has grand plans to design and build a utopian futuristic city using a revolutionary new substance known as Megalon. He won a Nobel Prize for developing the substance. He also seems to have the ability to temporarily stop time. But Cesar clashes with the city’s powerful and corrupt mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito, from tv series Breaking Bad, etc) over his vision for the city. Cicero is a former district attorney who tried to prosecute Cesar over the disappearance of his former wife. Cesar is also involved romantically with Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel, from Fast X, etc), who also shares the ability to stop time.
Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s vanity project that has been a couple of decades in the making. This ambitious dystopian sci-fi drama has been inspired by an event from ancient Roman history circa 63 BC. But his visionary fable fails spectacularly. The script, from Coppola is an incomprehensible and impenetrable mess although it is a film of big ideas. Megalopolis certainly contains plenty of intrigue and subplots but it appears unnecessarily bloated and unwieldly. Megalopolis contains plenty of political intrigue, and much of the film has contemporary resonance with current events in America.
Influenced by sci-fi films such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, and William Cameron Menzies’ 1936 sci-fi epic Things To Come, Megalopolis contains plenty of cinematic references and a raft of literary influences, everything from Shakespeare to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, but it also draws parallels between the fall of the ancient Roman empire and contemporary America. Coppola has tried to recreate the look of Roman architecture with some impressive but surreal production design from Beth Mickle that includes transforming the iconic Madison Square Garden into a garish, lavish nightclub that includes an indoor hippodrome with chariot races, gladiatorial contests and wrestling. Excess is one of the keywords to describe Coppola’s approach to the material.
Romanian born cinematographer Mihai Malaimare jr (who also shot Coppola’s stylish black and white 2009 drama Tetro, etc) gives the material a glossy visual surface with his golden hued palette, and he employs lots of visual tricks, including split screens, to add energy to the film. He captures the interiors and the sweeping urban landscapes beautifully. Most of the rumoured $130 million budget can be seen on screen with the visual effects and elaborate green screen sets.
Driver normally has a strong physical presence but here he seems an uncomfortable fit for the role of Cesar and he seems not to be heavily invested in bringing the character to life. Aubrey Plaza plays the wonderfully named Wow Platinum, a seductive and power-hungry television journalist; Esposito brings gravitas to his role as the city’s powerful and corrupt mayor, and Jon Voight plays Hamilton Crassus III, Cesar’s powerful, decadent and extremely wealthy uncle. Shia Le Beouf delivers an extremely strange performance as the sleazy Clodio Pulcher, Cesar’s jealous and seemingly sexually fluid cousin who plots his overthrow. Dustin Hoffman is wasted in a small and thankless role as Cicero’s main fixer (a role originally intended for the late James Caan), while Voight just looks wasted. (This film marks the first time that Hoffman and Voight have appeared together since 1969’s Midnight Cowboy.)
Laurence Fishburne plays Cicero’s faithful driver, and he also narrates the film, while James Remar, Balthazar Getty and D B Sweeney contribute small roles. The film also stars many of Coppola’s regular collaborators including Jason Schwartzman and Talia Shire who have small roles, but whose idiosyncratic characters leave little impression on the material. It speaks to Coppola’s reputation as a filmmaker that he was able to attract such an ensemble cast for his film.
Despite some bold visual flourishes, striking visual elements and a solid cast though, Coppola’s passion project Megalopolis is a self-indulgent megamess that seems to have polarised audiences. It contains some clunky dialogue delivered in wooden fashion. This was also a troubled and often delayed production. It will be interesting to see if, as with Apocalypse Now, a director’s cut of the film is released sometime in the future that may add some more insight and context to what we see here.
★★☆
