REVIEW: Megalopolis (2024)

Movie Reviews

I really, really, really wanted to love Megalopolis. I’ve written a couple of times about how disgusted I was with the entertainment media’s attempts to ruin the movie and director Francis Ford Coppola, including manufacturing sexual abuse allegations denied even by the supposed victim. This was a long-gestating passion project for the man who gave us several classics; he more than earned the right to make it, especially on his own dime. But now that I’ve seen it, I’m baffled; Megalopolis is astonishingly bad, a movie so haphazardly constructed and poorly executed it comes off as a middle finger to the audience.

In the future, New York has been renamed New Rome as the United States begins to resemble the fall of the city’s new namesake. (For some reason, New York/New Rome appears to be the entire country, or at least representative of it; strap yourself in because that’s about as much sense as anything in Megalopolis makes.) As the rich wallow in decadence and the poor languish in poverty, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), the head of a government architectural agency, begins demolishing parts of the city and using a new material he invented called Megalon to build a fantastical new city he calls Megalopolis, which will preserve American culture while moving society into the future. (Yep, both.) He’s opposed by the mayor (Giancarlo Esposito), who despises him and once prosecuted him for murdering his wife. The mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), a reporter named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza, who can’t catch a break nowadays), Cesar’s wealthy uncle (Jon Voight), and his weirdo cousin (Shia LaBeouf) all figure into what I guess we’re supposed to call a story.

Megalopolis feels like a dream. It makes no sense, with things happening for no reason and often with no connection to other scenes, random new details appearing out of nowhere, plot points either glossed over or ignored with the assumption that the audience will figure it out, explanations for the fantastical that defy comprehension, and a sense of insincerity infusing every aspect of it. I know this was Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project, but it’s so soulless and staged, with every moment that should feel human ringing false. The characters are empty, never revealing themselves through words or actions, never saying anything an actual human being might say, even in a heightened reality. Worse, we’re told what to think about each character by another character; someone else informs us what their arcs, conflicts, and personalities are via the most unrealistic, inhuman conversations you can imagine. For example, Nathalie Emmanuel tells us that Adam Driver is conflicted with allowing himself to feel for a woman because he’s still hung up on his dead wife. It’s like they’re teaching the most boring literature class that ever existed and spoon-feeding answers to their students.

And speaking of boring, Megalopolis is boring. Every single scene drags, partly because they’re so poorly written and acted that it’s impossible to get invested in anything, and partly because, much like the America Coppola is trying to judge, the movie just wallows in itself. There’s a wedding about forty minutes in (that is set up in a montage between two characters who shared one previous scene where they didn’t converse), and it lasts a seemingly interminable half hour, during which the plot doesn’t advance, the characters aren’t developed, and nothing interesting happens. Subplots that should have a major impact on the film are discarded as quickly as they’re introduced. The engineering of the new city, which is supposed to be the point of the movie, is never shown in any detail, and it takes a backseat for almost the entire run time. Even the setup (to the extent that there is one) makes no sense. Adam Driver is an architect who has some kind of official government position with so much power that he can simply destroy entire neighborhoods at will so he can rebuild them. The poor citizens who hate him because he keeps demolishing their homes call him an unelected tyrant, suggesting he was appointed. But the mayor hates him and what he’s doing. So, why did the mayor appoint him, and why can’t the mayor stop him? Oh, and Adam Driver also has the ability to stop time. Why and how? No idea. It’s asinine.

Aside from the nonsensical plot and sub-mannequin characters, Megalopolis is so high on its own perceived intelligence it’s not even funny. About 60% of the dialogue is made up of quotes from classic literature or cultural sources; William Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, and plenty of Romans are quoted ad nauseam, and you can tell Coppola thought it gave the film an air of importance, but it gets tiring, like the people in the movie can’t speak for themselves (although the rest of the dialogue kind of confirms that). Megalopolis really hammers home the Rome allegory, with characters named after historically significant Romans, the costumes consisting of either modern-day suits and dresses or Roman clothing for seemingly no reason, and chapter titles like “Bread and Circuses” (which is misused). It’s silly and doesn’t have the impact Coppola clearly thought it would. But when it has the chance, it can’t even illustrate the points it’s trying to make. For example, when Adam Driver goes on about preserving society, Nathalie Emmanuel asks him which aspects of society he wants to preserve, and his answer is, “Love.” He can’t even give a real answer, something that would communicate what Coppola thinks we’re losing and must retain, like knowledge or art or literature. No, it’s a trite answer to impress a girl, and it’s as empty-headed as the rest of Megalopolis is.

The actors all give terrible performances, with the exception of Laurence Fishburne, partly because he’s great and partly because he has little enough to do that he can sidestep a lot of the nonsense the others have to deal with. Adam Driver gives it his all, but his character is so weird and inconsistent that he’s left flailing, doing goofy dances or trying to be witty with atrocious dialogue. Nathalie Emmanuel is a bland female lead with no purpose other than to inspire Adam Driver, though how she does this is unclear because she’s got no life to her. Shia LaBeouf stumbles his way from scene to scene with a character who is whatever he needs to be at any given moment, seemingly reinvented in every scene; you would think he was playing a slew of different people. Aubrey Plaza is at least livelier than the rest, but she’s wacky to such a ridiculous extent that she’s a walking cartoon. Giancarlo Esposito never shows any of the charm or menace that made him so popular. Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, and Talia Shire are basically mascots put on screen because we know they’re great actors but mostly just embarrassed with terrible dialogue and silly scenes. I can only assume they all signed on because this was a Coppola film.

Megalopolis is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and that’s not hyperbole. I’ve seen direct-to-video trash that tried harder than this. And that’s maybe the worst part; when an artist strikes out on his own to show that he can create something without the studios and their money, he owes it to everyone else who might take inspiration from him to at least give it his all. But Megalopolis is so ineptly put together that this couldn’t possibly be the best Coppola could do. (Plus, you know, we’ve seen his other work, so we know he’s better than this.) What an insult.

Let us know what you thought of Megalopolis (if you were unfortunate enough to have seen it) in the comments!

***

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