It was as if the stars and the planets had aligned. I had finally earned some well deserved and much needed time off from my day job and one of my friends suggested we go see Megalopolis while it was still playing in theatres. Since I hadn’t posted on the site in a while and have been wanting to write something, I decided to take him up on the offer. I am, after all, the resident bad movie connoisseur am I not? So if Megalopolis is truly a disaster, a Megaflopolis as many critics are saying, then my review should be the final word on the subject. Because who can you trust if not me?
What can you say about Francis Ford Coppola that hasn’t already been said? He’s a genius. Sometimes tormented, sometimes vain, sometimes foolhardy, sometimes transcendent, sometimes charming, and sometimes silly, but always a genius. Always. He takes big wild swings with his work and is the very definition of a bold auteur. He’s also unique in the fact that he has never really tried to be a commercial filmmaker, not the way some of his contemporaries have, and so his successes feel almost accidental. Nearly all of his work, even his really popular movies like The Godfather or Dracula, feel as if they were passion projects where Coppola just happened to be fascinated by something that audiences found interesting too.
SO WHAT’S MEGALOPOLIS ABOUT?
The movie, which takes place in an alternate universe where the Roman Empire never fell and has more or less become the modern United-States, is about an architect played by Adam Driver butting heads with the New Rome City mayor over how to improve the lives of its inhabitants. Driver has grand Utopian ideas while the mayor is more concerned with more basic workable solutions, even if those solutions may be exploited by far less noble-minded people in the long run. It’s about a dreamer fighting the money men, a subject that Coppola is very familiar with.
Megalopolis also takes place in a world full of magic. Driver’s character can stop and restart time at will and he’s invented a magical substance called Megalon that can apparently do just about anything. His mistress Wow Platinum, played by Aubrey Plaza, is an enchantress that can cloud men’s minds and bend them to her will. The mayor, played by Giancarlo Esposito can see dark omens in the moon. So one thing to keep in mind is that this is not science-fiction, as the ads would have you believe, but a fantasy film.
THE GOOD
Shia Leboeuf is exquisite. I’d never been huge fan of him before. Not his fault, just nothing that he had done before particularly clicked with me. However, his Clodio Pulcher is a role worthy of laurels. He plays the character as this delightfully immoral, childish, decadent, treacherous swine. Pure perfection.
Megalopolis is beautiful and surreal. This is Coppola musing poetically and espousing lofty ideas and philosophy like he’s still a wide-eyed College kid. It’s not a “movie” movie, nor should it be viewed as such. Is it pretentious and ridiculous at times? Of course it is, but so what? That’s the risk you take when you’re passionate about something. The only people who never sound stupid are the people who never say anything. What you have to always remember about Coppola is that he doesn’t view his films as mere entertainment. He always has something to share with us and he wants the audience to go home enriched after the credits. I love and respect the hell out of that.
I also love Laurence Fishburne and Aubrey Plaza and Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito and Nathalie Emmanuel and Dustin Hoffman and everyone else in the movie whose roles I’m forgetting because they appeared and disappeared so quickly that they were as ephemeral as rainbows after a storm. They were lovely and they gave it everything they had. Hell, I even love Jon Voight, because why the hell not? He did a great job, and what kind of man would I be if I didn’t say so.
THE BAD
Coppola still has the same frustrating issue with meandering third acts and abrupt endings that he’s always had. There’s a heist scene that’s all setup and no payoff, and Dustin Hoffman’s character exits so unexpectedly that he might as well have fallen through a trap door mid-sentence. Thus Megalopolis doesn’t so much end as it awkwardly stumbles to a standstill. You’d think this wouldn’t have happened, not after hearing about how Coppola’s been working on the script for decades, but Francis is a loose and improvisational artist and so he creates by instinct. Sometimes this can yield gold, and there is much of it to be found throughout, but other times it makes for a messy movie that takes forever to wrap itself up because it’s obvious Coppola was screwing around for days on scenes that could have been shot in an hour. Then again, I’m not one to talk. It took me a week to write this review. So I very much understand overthinking things.
WAS IT AS BAD AS CRITICS SAID?
No it wasn’t, not truly. I mean, if the only emotion you want out of a movie is excitement then you will be very very bored. However, I think cinema should function as more than just distraction or escapism. It should sometimes make you go on a little existential journey. Not every time, there’s also a place for bat men and scary clowns, but sometimes it’s healthy to watch a movie that’s as dreamlike and as whimsical as siting in a field at night staring up at the stars. Megalopolis is such a movie, and I sincerely enjoyed it. Besides, this is Francis Ford Coppola’s final film, so who am I to begrudge the man a little self-indulgence? If anyone’s earned the right to make a film like this, he has.
