Francis Ford Coppola has always been a boundary-pushing filmmaker. He directed masterpieces like The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now. He’s also made some less acclaimed films like Jack and Twixt. He always has a lot to say, and with his new $120 million sci-fi epic Megalopolis, he has outdone himself. Perhaps the most polarizing movie of the year, everyone seems to have something different to say about this one. Personally, I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about it.
This one will be tough to review because Coppola fully goes for it. He self-finances this movie that has been a passion project of his for years. He’s taking big swings that nobody else in Hollywood takes. He operates on a level we haven’t seen on the big screen in a while, and I respect him for that. But I can’t commend it because Megalopolis is one of the biggest misfires I’ve ever seen. Every creative choice might have worked better for another audience member, but I could not wrap my head around what this movie was going for. It feels like an experimental student film that happens to run for 2 hours and 18 relentless minutes.
I’m not going to tell you my opinion is the correct one because, as I said, everyone will walk out of this film feeling differently. If you can make heads or tails of this movie, I’m proud of you. I thought Megalopolis was nightmarishly horrendous. So many ideas don’t have a good setup or payoff. It feels like the amalgamation of 40 years of drafts all combined into one. With an absurd amount of characters (none of whom we care about), this film is cinema’s most beautiful disaster. I’m almost in awe of it. Unlike most terrible movies, I want to watch this film again because I’m in disbelief that it exists.
Many scenes are edited so strangely that I could not believe how unintelligible they were. The basic premise revolves around a political race between Cesar Catalina (the Roman influence is very on-the-nose, as you can tell) and Mayor Francis Cicero. They both want to create a better future and have different ideas, which comes to a head when Cesar becomes involved with Francis’s daughter, Julia. The premise is not terrible, but the execution is atrocious.
Let’s start with the setting. Megalopolis is set in an alternate present-day “American Republic.” The characters live in New Rome, essentially an alternate New York City brought to life with CGI backdrops, sets, and archival footage of the city (I could tell because of a Sbarro in Times Square that existed years ago). As much as I respect Coppola’s commitment to building a new world, I was not convinced for a second. Many of the backdrops feel artificial. It’s extremely obvious when the actors stand in front of LED panels. One of the worst examples is a scene that’s supposed to be the most romantic part of the film: a kiss between two lovers as they stand on construction pipes miles above the city. Except you don’t buy into the danger for a second because everything looks fake.
The pacing can be unbearable here. Not only is it a twisted web of caricatures instead of characters, but it drags on with long, pretentious conversations that try too hard to be profound. Does Coppola care about subtlety? Apparently not, because many scenes feature characters verbally stating the film’s themes out loud. Why is this how he chooses to explore these themes? What is going on? We even have a character played by Laurence Fishburne, whose narration comes and goes throughout. His narration starts out fine, but there are scenes where it’s used to state things that could have been communicated visually rather than him saying it.
The cinematography works in some scenes and not so much in others. Coppola employs a superb use of bold, vibrant colors, and there is no shortage of excellent shots, particularly during a few outdoor nighttime scenes. But there is an overuse of a shallow depth of field (this comes from someone who loves shallow depth of field). Every scene is blocked and performed like a bad stage play. Megalopolis feels like the workings of a madman, free to create without restraints, letting his actors have free roam and making an absurdly high-budget independent film.
Despite the star-studded cast, no one seems to find their footing in this convoluted script. The emotional moments feel forced, and the dialogue often appears stilted or incomprehensible. Adam Driver gets a few hilarious line readings, Aubrey Plaza’s character is absurd, and I don’t know what Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight were doing in this movie. Honestly, I have no clue what these two Transformers actors were trying to do with these performances. This is a deranged miracle of a film that needs to be seen to be believed. I usually recommend that readers don’t watch the movies I dislike, but I encourage you to experience this because I have never seen anything like it.
We have no romantic chemistry between Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel, moments where the dialogue is so horrendous that I could not help but laugh, and a story that meanders without doing anything interesting. There’s a scene where a key character dies, which could have been tragic, but it’s one of the most hysterical scenes I’ve seen all year. We have split screens where the images get squashed and ugly. We have political commentary that’s so obvious that we have people waving the slogan, “Make Rome Great Again.” This is cinematic brilliance, the most horrible waste of 2 and a half hours, or anywhere in between. I don’t think anyone can decide. I think it’s self-indulgent and will leave you scratching your head.
SCORE: 1/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 1 equates to “Awful.”
ComingSoon doesn’t enjoy giving out an awful rating, and it’s generally reserved for video games that are broken or entertainment that is devoid of any redeeming qualities.
Dislcosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Megalopolis review.
