MEGALOPOLIS - Mark Reviews Movies

Megalopolis, Lionsgate

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 27, 2024

Who really knows how long Francis Ford Coppola has had Megalopolis on the back burner of his mind? Now that the movie is here, there's a bigger question: Why should we care?

Coppola's place in cinema history has been cemented, and it will remain that way. His latest won't change that, and neither should his past successes and possibly decades-long desire to make this particular movie influence one to look at this project with rose-tinted glasses. It is a mess.

It's a self-proclaimed fable in which every point is made so blatantly that one wonders why the story hides behind a futuristic setting, characters who speak in broad strokes or quote philosophers about human nature and politics and other subjects, and several gimmicks and subplots that are roundly forgotten until the plot has hit yet another dead end. Does Coppola's screenplay even have a plot, or is it just a collection of ideas and topics that have lingered on his mind for many years? It rambles in circles, as multiple characters vie and bicker and backstab for control of New Rome, which was once New York City but, at some point during this century, underwent a makeover apparently.

The two main fighters for political control are Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) and Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). The former is a powerful architect, maybe, and inventor, definitely, of a new material called megalon, which can do whatever Coppola requires of it at any given moment and for any particular reason. It even shows us Cesar's memories of his wife, whose death resulted in the trial of Cesar for murder by the prosecutorial hands of Cicero. The man was acquitted, mainly because the body was never found, which raises a question or two about how a cause of death of an insulin overdose was determined.

To pick apart the plot and exposition details here would be folly, because there's a strong sense that Coppola doesn't care about that kind of storytelling. One should give the man credit for that, except that it means a falling Soviet satellite is introduced during the prologue and forgotten about by every character until it's about to fall directly on New Rome. To be fair, those characters are busy quoting other people (One of Cesar's earlier scenes has him reciting the most famous soliloquy from Hamlet in its entirety), repeating the same lines that tells us about their political philosophies, and watching as New Rome goes the way of its imperial namesake.

Madison Square Garden, for example, has become the new Colosseum, complete with gladiatorial games and chariot races. In case we somehow miss such allusions, Laurence Fishburne plays Cesar's driver/assistant, who narrates events with an odd combination of grand statements about civilization and hand-holding for those who might not know about ancient Rome.

The sights here are occasionally stunning, if entirely impractical and confounding, too. At a couple of points, Cesar, who can control time (which would seem a more important characteristic than its use in the story), and Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor's daughter who falls for this bad boy of architecture and utopian society-building, stand atop a giant clock face. For whom is this clock, high above every building and aimed at the sky, intended? It's for us, apparently, to notice that it's a nifty position.

Coppola has attracted a recognizable cast, from the aforementioned actors (All of whom play the material as if they know what it's about, which is quite the feat) to others. They include Aubrey Plaza as a seductive financial journalist (named Wow Platinum, if one is wondering what the silliest name here is), Jon Voight as Cesar's uncle and the CEO of the most prominent bank in the city, and Shia LaBeouf as Cesar's cousin Clodio. Clodio becomes the third pillar of the movie's political story, rising to prominence and power as a populist who only cares about prominence and power. For all of the evasiveness of its setting and plotting, we can't really miss the point of Clodio when his supporters start wearing red hats and he stands upon a tree stump carved into a swastika.

We don't expect subtlety from a self-professed fable, but at a certain point, does the description still fit? The point at which such a thing happens, by the way, is probably a tree-stump swastika.

The easiest description and hollowest praise of Megalopolis is that it's ambitious. For a movie as devoted to history and human nature and politics as this one supposedly is, Coppola might have considered the usual consequence of unchecked ambition before setting to work on this one.

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