Megalopolis was supposed to be a film for the ages. A film that Francis Ford Coppola has been devising, planning, and breathing life into for almost five decades. But time, as one character succinctly puts it, waits for no one. And time has not been kind to Coppola's passion project, a film that saddles itself so solidly on the shoulders of its vision, that it forgets to be anything else worthy of note. Megalopolis is a visually interesting but woefully inadequate piece of cinema; a lesson in unchecked ambition running away with an idea, story, and style that feels out of time and place.
Set in a hybrid-futuristic New York City (except here it is called New Rome), Coppola's fable pits visionary architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) against the corrupt city mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). Their competing visions on how to restore a city crippled by disaster and disarray see other parties attempt to capitalise on the unrest, including Catilina's envious cousin Claudio (a predictably insufferable Shia LaBeouf). Meanwhile, Cicero's daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) risks breaking her father's heart by falling in love with Catilina and breaking free of Cicero's overarching influence.
Coppola clearly spends far more time than the average man thinking about the Roman Empire. The film revolves around a retelling of the Catilinarian Conspiracy (hence the Roman names) and Coppola's determination to draw a parallel between the fall of Rome and contemporary America. Except Coppola tries far too hard. The slew of Roman references, from the names to the costumes, events, and background characters, is too heavy-handed. It lacks the subtlety and nuance to come across as intelligent, instead turning what should have been Megalopolis' fascinating central thread into a painfully obvious and mismanaged comparison. Coppola is undoubtedly drawing influences from historical epics like Spartacus (1960), as well as the gorgeous science fiction and utopian gravitas of films like Metropolis (1927). But Megalopolis lacks the dramatic impact and scale of the former as well as the political bite or sheer wonderment of the latter.
As if realising this clumsily handled parallel to antiquity isn't enough to fuel Megalopolis' belching engine, Coppola throws in a myriad of other stylistic touches and ideas. It isn't all bad. The production design is regularly lavish, combining Art Deco with Roman architecture and design while blending it all with a distinct modernist presence. More often than not, the cocktail goes down a treat and works overtime in those sequences that offer glimmers of what should have been. But there are too many frustrating juxtapositions that give Megalopolis a disappointingly scattershot feel. Coppola seems to feel that the excess he unleashes onscreen is enough in itself to draw the viewer in, when really it comes across as compensatory and bewildering more than anything else. Furthermore, whenever Coppola's ambition extends beyond his adhesion, and CGI enters the foray, the result is very hit-and-miss. The visuals are of varying quality, at times falling to a generative AI level of garish that prevents too many scenes from leaving any lasting impression.
Megalopolis' woes however, much like those of New Rome, are more than skin deep. The story is too disorientating and temporally confused, with references to contemporary politics and history blunted by the melee of overthinking. Worst of all, women have seemingly fallen by the wayside in pursuit of the film's ambition. The majority of them exist either as background ornaments that decorate the film's smokescreen allure, or as the sources, spurs, or victims of the lofty ambitions of powerful men. Even those with more to do, such as Emmanuel and Aubrey Plaza's power-hungry TV personality Wow Platinum, feel at the whim of their male counterparts. It feels out of touch with the illustrious future promised by the film's clique of supposed visionaries. And they're not alone. Laurence Fishburne, while making for a wonderfully sincere narrator, is stuck with a role as Catilina's PA that feels cruelly beneath him.
This will happily not be the film that Coppola will be remembered for. His place in history was assured long before Megalopolis was even a thought. Perhaps it will be for him what Heaven's Gate (1980) was for Michael Cimino, and time will look more favourably on Megalopolis' achievements. But as it stands, not even with Driver's peculiar-looking telescope could you spot what these achievements are. Had everything come together, Megalopolis could have defined this decade of motion pictures. Instead, what we have is a deflating, uncompromising failure of craftsmanship from a legend of cinema that should know better.
Megalopolis is out now in UK & Irish cinemas.
