Megalopolis (2024)

Score: 1 / 5

Oh boy.

Much will be made of the four-decade history of this film and its sociohistorical relevance and references. There will be renewed debate about Francis Ford Coppola's artistry and claims about his place as one of the most important film directors in history (I agree, by the by) despite some widely criticized missteps. Some will decry the identification of "great films" and what constitutes masterpieces and for whom. But few reviewers will dig into themselves, locating the basis of their feelings and why their writing (and thinking, from which writing comes) feels the need to be defensive, informative, and supportive. Because the uncomfortable, nasty truth is that Megalopolis makes no sense and is one of the most confusing and boring movies ever made.

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate Coppola's vision and some of his technique. Reading a screenplay of this might offer some insight; then again, it might make things worse, as so much of the film is ripped from the likes of Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Sappho, and other sources. Understanding the Roman histories from which large parts of these characterizations and thematic and plot developments are copied would likely help as well; it's possible that knowledge would only cloud the murky ideas further, as these are clearly meant to be more personal reflections than historical treatises. Seeing the film again in its entirety would almost certainly help me parse and triage the onslaught of images, sounds, ideas, and sensations vomited by Coppola onto his warmly golden vision of men in charge of the world dealing with personal crises. But, honestly, I will never willingly watch any part of this film again.

Less a narrative and more an experience of wandering through an auteur's dream, no review could possibly impart the pure sensory experience of watching this film. There is constant tension in the most unexpected of ways, built into the fabric of the film rather than simply on display. Alternating scenes depict actors at the height of their powers -- looking at you, Aubrey Plaza -- performing with ballsy gusto in front of what appear to be CGI backgrounds of shimmering golden light that feel cheaper than what you might see in a children's museum. Interspersed with these are legendary actors like Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Fishburne utterly wasted on inane dialogue and relegated to looking Deeply Concerned in the background while balancing on precarious catwalks in richly detailed but almost visually ignored sets. The biggest visual flourishes feel ungrounded and unmoored, a drug-induced kaleidoscope with Adam Driver (clearly a stand-in for Coppola, as he observes the city from on high like a director mapping out his set) awkwardly floating in full frame.

Thematically, I still don't know what to make of it, either. Clearly a deeply personal project about nations rising and falling but Art and Artists lasting through them, it feels like a cruel joke that the messaging is married to this confused format and bewildering, self-indulgent "artistry." Any concerns about Art are blurred by references to urban development, renewable resources, governmental corruption, big businesses interfering in family affairs, and -- because why not -- prenup agreements between gold-digging sexual predators and lecherous old men eager for the next trophy wife. Is Megalon, the fancy new material created by Driver to build his utopia, supposed to be a symbol of something? Because its convenient ability to have very different qualities based on the needs of various scenes makes the material utterly incomprehensible and unbelievable except as a symbol. But, again, for what? And as "New Rome," the setting of the film (inadequately doubling New York with what appears to be Atlanta) is meant to be modern America (and in proximity to Atlantic City), one has to wonder exactly what, in an election year and after years of political unrest, Coppola is saying by not saying things about contemporary politics. 

The interpersonal relationships that comprise (read: waste) most of the film's runtime notwithstanding, I found myself repeatedly annoyed that Shia LaBeouf, Kathryn Hunter, and more talents than should have been assembled are wasted in this confused mess of misdirected opportunities. Is this our decade's Caligula? Maybe, but it's neither as sexy nor as disastrous as it should be to earn that designation; Babylon might approach it, then, but that, for all its decadence, at least knew what it was and allowed its audience in to experience it fully. Here, Coppola keeps us at an arm's length -- if not father -- forcing us to regard it without requisite understanding. Thankfully, it generally eschews the cloying sentimentality that poisoned the self-reflective exercises of other great auteurs in their "masterpieces" I loathed (looking at you, Martin Scorsese and Alfonso Cuaron), but it's small consolation in such an unenjoyable doldrums.

The confused viewing experience is, reportedly, shared by many on set; some accounts claim that Coppola actively changed his mind and directorial style before repeated takes, leaving actors and crew alike unaware of what they were creating and why. In as much as his story is about a real Roman coup, one wonders if his mind was attempting an artistic coup itself; it will be telling when certain professional reviewers attempt to suck up to his vision, advocating that people go to cinemas to see this material where it really belongs, even as they sidestep real consideration of what this film is doing and why. Why? Because it's impossible for anyone who isn't Coppola to know what this film is doing and why. And that has to be a failure of art. Doesn't it?

Like the satellite he shows a few times on its crash course with Earth's atmosphere, Coppola's film embraces no reason and reaches no conclusions, dropped unceremoniously at the start of the awards race and oblivious to its own lack of meaning. A wedding in Madison Square Gardens that looks like the Colosseum, statues of justice collapsing amidst the skyscrapers, women being eaten out on an office desk in multiple positions by a man more interested in boning his sisters, it's just incomprehensible sequence after offensively incomprehensible setpiece. Fundamentally, formally, foundationally: this film doesn't work.