Megalopolis - Review: Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

When you're a legendary talent like Francis Ford Coppola, the man who's directed some works that are referred to as the greatest of all time, such as "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," and "The Conversation." He's also directed some that are referred to as some of the worst of all time, such as "Twist," the arguably bad "One from the Heart" and the infamously terrible "Jack (1996)." With a career as expansive as his, any new films, regardless of concept or origin, should be cause for celebration. His latest movie, "Megalopolis", certainly falls into one of the two previously mentioned groups. Unfortunately, it's not the good one.

Billed as "A Fable" with Coppola's own name directly above it, "Megalopolis" stars a cornucopia of actors. Adam Driver (“Marriage Story,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) leads the pack as Cesar Catalina, an architect and leader of the Design Authority, who wants to build a massive city in New Rome made of the mysterious material Megalon. He's opposed by the mayor Franklyn Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad,” “Do The Right Thing”), whose daughter Julia Cicero, played by Nathalie Emmanuel (“Hollyoaks,” “Game of Throne”), slowly begins to fall for Cesar. Meanwhile, behind all of this, Cesar's cousin Clodio Pulcher, played by Shia LaBeouf (“Holes,” “Transformers”), attempts to wrestle political and monetary power for himself, while television presented Wow Platinum, played by Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation,” “Agatha All Along”), tries to romance Cesar's uncle, the elderly bank magnate Hamilton Crassus III, played by Jon Voight (“Midnight Cowboy,” “National Treasure”), into giving his fortune to her. All of this is also loosely narrated by Cesar’s chauffeur and personal assistant Fundi Romaine, played by Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix,” “Boyz N The Hood”).

Coppola, who's written and directed the film, has talked plenty about his inspirations for the film; there's a clear line to be drawn from "Megalopolis" back to the fall of Roman and of the Catalina Conspiracy event. He’s also been toiling with this film in some respect since the 80s, eventually forgoing any studio involvement and selling some of his wineries to self-fund the $120 million budget and make the movie his own way.

This does mean that the film we're left with is an epic example of the power of critique and criticism. So many directors in the history of cinema have been ruined simply because no one stepped in and said no. By freeing himself from any critics during the production, yes Coppola has made exactly the vision of this film he's always wanted to make. It also means the film has its head shoved so far up its own ass, it can see what it had for lunch that day.

There's a self-important air throughout the entire film, from the way it’s staged and edited down to the dialogue. At random intervals, there are bits of text shown on the screen carved into giant slabs of marble like one would see in ancient Rome. Cesar's introduction scene with the rest of the cast has him reciting about half of the "To Be or Not to Be" monologue from Hamlet. It gives the film an identity of something deeply important, but it never builds to anything. Even if the characters seem almost unchanged by the end of it all, there doesn't even seem to be a grand statement about civilization made. At one point, Cesar literally says, "We are in need of a great debate about the future" and the film simply doesn't offer anything more to say than "Boy, America sure does seem like a Roman empire, doesn't it?"

The entire cast is unfortunately let down by the man behind the camera. While so many of them have been fantastic in other works, they all just seem left out to sea here. Driver in particular has the biggest struggle; his way of playing larger than life characters with such minutia works when there's a good script to back him up. But unfortunately, the script here makes him come across more as a pompous high school theatre kid than a trained actor. Emmanuel just seems lost, like she has nothing to react against, as if she was filmed against a green screen and digitally added in after the fact. The oldest members of the cast, like Voigt and Dustin Hoffman (“Kramer vs. Kramer,” “The Meyerowitz Stories”), seem like they've gone senile and are just stumbling around the set haphazardly. LaBeouf might be the worst of them all, reducing his role to the kind of stereotype of "annoying manchild with effeminate tendencies" that we thought was left behind decades ago. The only one who comes out semi-unscathed is Plaza, who does so simply by cranking up her delivery to the point where she seems to believe she's in a comedy skit that could turn into a porno at any moment, and by extent she seems like the only person involved who's having any fun.

Given the gargantuan budget, the film would at least be expected to look the part. And for the most part it does, and yet so much of it appears as though it's the first draft of a visual effects company. An early moment has Cesar and Julia standing on top of a floating clock overlooking the skyline of New Rome, later revisiting that same site with additional floating girders, suspended thousands of feet in the air. Why are these things here? Who knows! But they do look absolutely gorgeous while they're up there. And yet, later on we see amateurish and garish blemishes, like poorly composited green screen effects or just bad looking CGI. It's a comically mixed bag of visual stylings, betraying a largely gorgeous cinematic look from cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (“The Master,” “The Harder They Fall”).

There's so much bad here and so much bizarrely well intentioned as well. But it all comes down to the film's ending. So much can be forgiven if the tale being told at least wraps up in a satisfying way or has something interesting to say. Coppola has nothing to say, seemingly, if one goes by the way the film ends. It feels like a half-gorgeous retread of the last four decades of "rich and powerful madmen" stories, as if Coppola wrote the script and simply tossed it in a drawer until he finally got the cash to bankroll it. There's a lack of a subtlety; this is a film where a Russian satellite named "Carthage" crashed into an American city named "New Rome" after all, but the biggest crime at the center of "Megalopolis" and its most depressing one: it's just kind of boring. Even draped in this bizarre visual style, dialogue, and performances, the story at the center of it all just doesn't excite or invigorating like something of this scale should.

There’s a longstanding belief that some of the best writers, directors, and creatives in any entertainment industry are great because they know how to control themselves. Infamously, many blame the unfettered and unquestioned support George Lucas received from 20th Century Fox for the state of the Star Wars prequels. Even some of the greats have spoken about how their works are so great because they have people with them willing to say no. “Megalopolis” is the ultimate example of that kind of power: yes, it is a singular vision from a filmmaking legend, exactly the kind of film he wanted to make. But it’s also garish, confusing, full of wooden and terrible performances, and either building to nothing or told so confusingly that the point it is building to is lost amongst everything else. As so many fables end with a lesson for it’s audience, and this is billed explicitly as a fable, it seems that the lesson to be learned here is the power of saying “no.” 1/5