Megalopolis Is One of the Great Bad Films
Image Courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times/Lionsgate
By Dean Robbins
Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed $120 million production Megalopolis opened to $4 million in wide theatrical release, but I believe it will be remembered. Your kids will know Megalopolis not only because it was the go-for-broke (literally) passion project of one of the greatest directors of the 20th century but also because it is a legendarily awful disasterpiece. Especially in these days of AI greenlighting and shelving for tax write-offs, few creatives have been allowed to so confidently miss with such precision. In that regard, witnessing Megalopolis splatter itself on the IMAX screen is somewhat romantic.
The central point of Megalopolis is that we ought to have hard conversations to create a better future. Coppola purposefully hired actors with less popular political beliefs and/or who were “cancelled” due to allegations, including of domestic violence in the case of Shia LaBeouf, to symbolize this message. And in defense of the film, Coppola very clearly conveys that he does not have the answers to the conversations – to a sometimes frustrating extent.
The protagonist is Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a brilliant renaissance man and urban planner who heads the “Design Authority” of New Rome, essentially New York City if it was as obsessed with the Roman Empire as your ex was. Madison Square Garden now hosts gladiatorial circuses, and the high-class fashion includes flowing robes and gold, flowery crowns. The point of this world is to draw parallels between the decline of the Roman Empire and the U.S. of today. In fact, Catilina’s driver (and the film’s narrator), Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne) says so explicitly at the very beginning of the film. Cesar wants to save the “American Republic” by erecting a utopian city called Megalopolis in New Rome out of a magical, unexplained substance called Megalon. This city will stimulate the intellectual expression needed to fight the avaricious appetites of the elite.
Catilina is at least partially a stand-in for Coppola. They both dealt with the sickness and death of their wives (although Coppola’s wife died during post-production). They both know that the future is in the hands of the young and that some of the past may need to be destroyed to make way.
The vision presented by Catilina is noticeably bereft of actual ideas. In showcasing the utopian city, the film focuses on megalon-powered moving sidewalks that are the functional equivalent of airport walkways. We get one major montage of the city, which is rendered as a slideshow of poorly-rendered computer generated (CG) mockups that should have been placeholders rather than the final product. If only Coppola sold all of his winery or had not fired the visual effects (VFX) team midway through production.
Coppola’s vision for cinema is similarly empty. He wants to deconstruct traditional narrative forms but ends up with something objectively worse. Most of the cast is not properly introduced or developed. Coppola and cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. visually conjure up interesting sequences on occasion, especially when referencing Old Hollywood and silent film, but the aesthetic is more often garish than not. Every scene is bathed in digital effects reminiscent of how films like Speed Racer looked at their worst. It reminded me more of genuinely low-budget independent cinema than anything costing over $100 million. If I was told that Megalopolis was made for under $10 million with the cast appearing pro bono in support of Coppola, I would totally believe it. Even the most impressive-looking sets, like that of Madison Square Garden, are shot, edited, and digitally enhanced like a bad cover-up of a tough compromise. I spent much of the hefty 138-minute runtime waiting for a boom mic to appear in a shot accidentally.
The worst offender of the film, however, is the editing done by Cam McLauchlin and Glen Scantlebury. The rhythm is often completely disrupted by odd sequencing choices and cut-aways. No part of the film is safe from this.
In one of the better sections, Catilina is in a drunken stupor wandering through the backstage of Madison Square Garden. It is appropriately nauseating but regularly interrupted with cuts back to other characters and a stage performance going on. There is also a clear sense of missing scenes as the story appears to skip seemingly critical pieces. Some scenes seem cut down to the bare minimum needed to communicate a vague narrative point at the expense of making much sense within the broader scope of the plot.
A consistent thought in my head throughout the film was, “what is even going on?” There is no real dramatic throughline beyond, “Will Catilina get to finish Megalopolis?” which we are given no reason to actually care about. Moving walkways and a substance that might as well be Unobtanium from Avatar? Riveting stuff.
We are meant to care about all of the political and financial obstacles against Catilina, including a rivalry with the mayor (Giancarlo Esposito), who thinks he killed his wife, an uneasy intimate affair with financial reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza, who is a genuine highlight as a seductive femme fatale), or a Trump stand-in satyr-turned-mayoral candidate (Shia LaBeouf, often seen here groping women, in drag, or both) financed by his senile billionaire father (Jon Voight). That sounds like a lot, and it is, but nothing registers.
Megalopolis is akin to watching the smartest person you know beat their record for shotgunning a beer at a lavish but poorly organized senior year party they hosted. Like sure, thank you for the invite, but maybe you should have ordered more pizza or just made better use of your talents and time. Aren’t midterms next week? If this sounds fun to you, then please proceed. To loosely paraphrase Allen Ginsburg, go to your nearest theater and see one of the best minds of film history be destroyed by madness.
