Film review: ‘MEGALOPOLIS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
It’s been a while since we were subjected to a huge, lumbering, overly ambitious turkey of a film. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon looked to be heading that way but ended up as genuinely stylish and entertainingly bonkers. Francis Ford Coppola has stepped up to the plate, though, with his near unwatchable dystopian sci fi stinker Megalopolis. This was apparently a passion project for the revered Godfather director which began around 1977 and had to be repeatedly shelved due to other commitments. In its near 50-year gestation period the project has clearly gone off the rails.
Through this weird but dull 138-minute film, Coppola has attempted some sort of critique of the American empire by comparing it to strife-riven ancient Rome. The film is set sometime in the future where the US or at least New York has transformed into a kind of modern Roman Empire known as New Rome. The film references the Catilinarian conspiracy, an attempted coup in Rome in 63 BCE, as it depicts dodgy Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) facing an electoral challenge from the mercurial Nobel prize winning scientist and urban planner – and the film’s purported hero – Caeser Catalina (Adam Driver). Complicating matters, Caeser is in love with Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). Also, entwined in the political shenanigans are rich banker Crassus (Jon Voight), his sneaky wife named (believe it or not) Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) and Caeser’s repulsive weasel cousin Clodio (Shia Labeouf) who wants to usurp power by riling up the masses through, guess what, promises to restore American greatness. In the midst of all this, Caeser is designing a new green utopian city based around a magical (and poorly defined) substance called Megalon. There are also bits of opera, Shakespeare, Dune, The Matrix and Caligula swirling around this outrageously silly story. Suffice to say, for much of this film, many will be asking ‘what the hell is going on?’.
Even more than the confusing, shape shifting plot, what makes this film so cringeworthy is the strangely stiff ‘rabbit in the headlights’ acting performances. The normally compelling king of indie cool Adam Driver looks unnervingly awkward as he spouts bizarre clunky dialogue in a ludicrously pompous voice. Even more unsettling is Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia whose confused performance recalls Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls. Laurence Fishburne is also unintentionally comical as the film’s oh so serious narrator. Admittedly, much of the awkwardness of their performances is due to the bizzarre script with which they’re forced to contend.
Some of the cast fair a little better. Aubrey Plaza’s nefarious Lady Macbeth-like character allows her to inject some of the comical misanthropy we enjoyed in Plaza’s Parks and Recreation character April Ludgate. Giancarlo Esposito also emerges relatively unscathed mainly due to the fact that he’s one of the few characters who’s allowed to talk like a normal human. Shia LaBeouf is convincingly sleazy and obnoxious as Clodio but his apparent pastiche of a certain political figure could have gone further. What on Earth, though, is Dustin Hoffman doing in this film? He pops briefly as some sort of political fixer then abruptly disappears.
With a big expensive sci fi film from a major director we would expect stunning spectacle. For the most part, though, this film also fails on an aesthetic level. Some of the art deco building designs and psychedelic freak-out scenes which recall 1960’s ‘trip’ movies, look impressive but much of this glossy film has a weirdly empty sterile feel like an upmarket fragrance commercial.
At times it seems like the whole film is meant to be a joke and we shouldn’t take any of it seriously but then another pompous quasi-Shakespearean speech jolts us back to the realisation that Coppola was trying to say something meaningful.
The extent of Coppola’s’ ambition for this film is admirable but the result is bizarre, gargantuan mess. It’s sad to think that the reputation of a great auteur like Coppola might be forever stained with a film like this.
Nick’s rating: *1/2
Genre: Drama/ Action/ Science Fiction.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Francis Ford Coppola.
Release date: 26th Sept 2024.
Running time: 138 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.