Megalopolis sags under the weight of its lofty aspirations

Reel Impressions is The NewsHouse’s weekly film review. Contributors Francesco Desiderio and Travis Newbery cover everything from new releases to trending classics. 

Despite what the media and its promotional materials would have you believe, Megalopolis is not Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie. As it turns out, the film was written and directed by an alien. 

Megalopolis is truly one of the most bizarre motion pictures I have ever had both the pleasure and displeasure of witnessing. As contemporaries like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg continually turn in refined but rich late-stage masterworks, it seems Coppola chose to throw everything he could into this off-kilter epic instead. 

The film follows Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a gifted and über-ambitious architect, as he tries to rebuild the sprawling city of New Rome into a harmonious utopia. Along the way, he struggles with Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) for the control and respect of the city while falling in love with the mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel).

At least, that’s how the story is supposed to go. Instead, the final product resembles its own sort of megalopolis, teeming with too many concepts, storylines and non sequiturs to ever truly achieve everything it so clearly wants to.

At its core, the movie tries to connect a political plot from the Roman Republic to the current state of global urban civilization. Down to the dozens of shots of impoverished-looking children looking on from behind fences, Megalopolis, subtitled “A Fable,” touts itself as a metaphor for the downfall of the American empire, only able to be saved by a new generation of visionaries. 

It never manages to get off the ground, though. For a film that keeps talking about the importance of open and radical discussions about society, it can barely convey the layered dynamics of its own society, much less relate in any significant way to the real world.

So much happens in the story, yet so much remains critically undeveloped. For example, one of the main mechanics of the film is “Megalon,” an apparently magical biotechnology and Catilina’s claim to fame that is never explained further. Catilina can also stop and start the flow of time at will, also without explanation. Much of the movie feels like Coppola was making it up as he went along.

And it’s entirely possible he was. Since beginning development in 1983, Megalopolis has seen a myriad of rewrites, retoolings and recastings. With how much is going on in this film, it seems that any idea Coppola had within those 41 years was fair game.

Megalopolis really does feel like it was crafted by an alien—one who takes a single look at Earth and tries to somehow compact dozens of elements and ideals of modern civilization into one coherent story. With character names like “Fundi Romaine,” “Nush ‘The Fixer’ Berman” and “Wow Platinum,” this film could not come off as more outlandish if it tried. For someone like Coppola, the auteur behind some of the most cherished films in American cinema history, it comes across as a gargantuan misfire. 

The sloppy direction and realization of this already insane script take things to another level. All those Best Director awards didn’t stop Coppola from tanking the overall atmosphere and vibes of this movie.

When Megalopolis was shooting a year and a half ago and I saw headlines about the art and visual effects departments quitting halfway through, I had no idea how painfully obvious the ramifications would be. For a movie that takes place in a supposedly bustling New York City-esque supercity, any and all exterior scenes feel flat and staged. The cinematography and sound design that is supposed to uphold New Rome comes across as amateur and minimal, and the constant use of green screens helps this to become one of the most uncanny-looking movies this side of the Star Wars prequels.

Don’t even get me started on the acting direction. This utterly stacked cast cannot muster a single compelling performance. Even someone as zany as Aubrey Plaza comes across as tired and robotic. Dialogue sounds stale and emotionless, and several characters inexplicably wander in and out of New York accents between every scene. 

All this to say, I did not have a net bad time watching Megalopolis. I had very high expectations… several months ago before anyone had seen the final cut. So coming into this, with all the polarized reviews and discourse I had seen, I was prepared for anything to happen – and oh boy, did everything happen.

I think the pieces were there to make this into the grandiose statement masterpiece it hopes to be. At the heart of this film, some concepts and stories could have serious potential had they been executed with more care and attention. Ultimately, however, Megalopolis and its ideas spent far too long in the cinematic can to be able to excel or even function from start to finish.

If I owe this film anything, it’s respect. Words cannot describe how admirable and simply cool it is to self-finance all $120 million of your career-long passion project. Coppola had a vision and the capital to back it up and now has realized his dream genuinely and without compromise. Most people would do the same if given the opportunity.

For movie lovers worldwide anxiously waiting for Francis Ford Coppola’s next Godfather or Apocalypse Now, unfortunately, Megalopolis does not deliver. It was a great effort, but now we can only sit back and marvel at what this epic failed experiment could have been.

Watch the Megalopolis Official Trailer (2024) here: