Film Review: Megalopolis

Megalopolis
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
American Zoetrope, Caesar Film LLC.
In Theaters: 09.27

In the ‘70s, Italian-American filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, inspired by their ancestral country’s stylish and violent spaghetti westerns, made stylish and revolutionary gangster films. Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) is beyond boring, but Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) is, probably, the best film ever made.

After a streak of four perfect films, Coppola went on to direct harmless and uninspired films like The Outsiders (1983) to pay off the debts from making One from the Heart (1981). Megalopolis, Coppola’s self-financed passion project, is everything he wanted it to be, and it’s terrible.

Megalopolis is about the conflict between a revolutionary architect, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver, Star Wars, Marriage Story), and the mayor of the city he wants to rebuild, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito, Breaking Bad, Do the Right Thing), as they struggle to determine their falling city’s needs.

You’d expect more nuance coming from one of Hollywood’s best screenwriters, but Coppola batters you over the head with his references and deeper meanings. Cesar speaks exclusively in quotes from Hamlet. Megalopolis wants to sound like a Shakespearean epic, but that tone makes every character sound like they’re talking at each other, not with each other. If this is what he thinks Shakespeare sounds like, I’m amazed he was ever capable of writing The Godfather.

The actors know what they’re reading is shit. Aubrey Plaza’s (Emily the Criminal, The White Lotus) performance as TV presenter Wow Platinum is in a confusing limbo between comedic and dramatic. The older actors, Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, Anaconda) as Cesar’s wealthy uncle in particular, appear to be on Xanax. Even Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man, Kramer vs. Kramer), whose career is shining, mumbles and slurs his lines as Mayor Franklyn Cicero’s “fixer.” Driver is certainly trying. I can tell he wants to give us something good, but his dialogue and one-dimensional character kill the flow. His relationship with love interest Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones, The Killer), Mayor Cisero’s daughter (what a scandal!), is really dull. The emotional weight in their relationship comes much later in the film after they have an obviously plastic baby, a trick used by writers to give their surface-level characters “depth.” Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy, Fury) is a hoot as Cesar’s jealous cousin. Give that guy an inch and he’ll take a mile. Giancarlo Esposito is definitely there.

Megalopolis is a story reliant on its characters and their relationships with the world and with each other, but because the characters are vapid and the world is a heavy-handed allegory, there’s nothing really concrete for the audience to like—just concepts. It’s a fugazi. A trick. It’s all an attempt to make his artificial world and characters feel real. That’s why his star-studded cast feels completely wasted. They all jumped at the chance to work with an industry legend without considering the depth of the script they were given. I don’t blame them, I probably would’ve done the same.

Visually, the film is a mess. Coppola’s 120-million-dollar budget looks like a 20-dollar budget as actors stand proudly in front of a green screen skyline full of terrible CGI and weird color grading. The dutch angle—Hollywood’s ugliest angle—is used liberally and for no reason. There are moments where you think, “Okay, I can see how this guy was capable of making The Godfather at some point,” but those moments are so few and far between that you eventually wonder if The Godfather was a fluke and if he ever had any talent at all.

In the middle of the film, after a cataclysmic event that fundamentally changes nothing about the plot, the lights came up. I thought the film was over and felt relieved that I could soon go home. Then a theater employee (a man being paid 15 dollars an hour) marched up to the screen with a microphone and lip synced to an off-screen journalist while he pretended to write Adam Driver’s response on a notepad.  It’s the kind of stunt that turns a person into Travis Bickle.

It really hurts me to write a review this critical of a man whose talent used to be obvious. Megalopolis is a reminder that we will all, one day, lose the pulse of the world. Coppola doesn’t know how people talk anymore or how to use new tech. At least we’ll always have The Godfather. –B. Allan Johnson

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