movie review
MEGALOPOLIS
Running time: 138 minutes. Rated R (sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence). In theaters Sept. 27.
There are two battles being fought in Francis Ford Coppola’s confounding “Megalopolis.”
One feud is between a forward-thinking architect named Cesar (Adam Driver), who wants to rebuild the fictional American city of New Rome into a futuristic utopia, and the greedy Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who prizes profit and pleasure.
And in front of the screen, another war is waged. The opponents? The audience’s earnest desire to enjoy the likely final movie from the genius director of “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” versus the obvious reality that his new film is a catastrophe.
As with every awful movie that wobbles on the stilts of good intentions, you can guess what wins.
“Megalopolis,” for all its high-minded ideals, is impossible to like. To even politely admire this cacophony of concepts takes the willpower of an army.
Coppola kicks off with a trumpeted lecture. “Our American republic is not all that different from Old Rome,” narrator Laurence Fishburne declares, adding that we could “fall victim to the insatiable appetite for power of a few men.”
Just about every line of “Megalopolis” could be followed by “The defense rests!”
The writer-director’s setting is apparently New York — the license plates say Empire State and there are gladiator spectacles at Madison Square Garden — but it’s instead called New Rome.
The familiar city and the retro movie itself definitely have the soft-focus ickiness of 1990s NYC.
Everywhere is loosely Art Deco. Women wear sheer Halloween togas, and men look like “Guys & Dolls” gamblers headed to a funeral. The detailed aesthetic makes it no less ugly.
Gloom and doom Driver plays Cesar, a famous architect and inventor of Megalon, an indestructible element with untapped potential for construction and healthcare.
Dustin Hoffman’s Nush Berman succinctly denounces the material during a public meeting over plans for New Rome. “No, no, no! Concrete, concrete, concrete!,” he thumps.
Cesar, giving us a taste of what’s to come, then delivers the entire “To be or not to be” soliloquy from “Hamlet.” Lord knows why. Well, we, the viewers, certainly do suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous movie.
Shakespeare’s timeless words are in stark contrast to the penultimate scene, in which Jon Voight as Cesar’s shady banker uncle Crassus asks, “What do you think of this boner I got?”
Cesar is loathed by Mayor Franklyn. “This man is the bane of my existence! I want him out of my life!,” he subtly shouts. But Hizzoner’s rebellious daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) is infatuated with the famed designer and pursues a romance.
While I hesitate to fault the actors, since the script is Satan’s TED Talk, Emmanuel’s woeful performance has all the emotional commitment of a McDonald’s drive-thru worker at closing time.
Julia is not the only one pining for Cesar. The brooding builder, whose wife mysteriously died years earlier, is also sleeping with Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a batty TV reporter who hosts a show called “Money Bunny.” Plaza fits into this world as well as anyone, which is to say she doesn’t.
Jealous of his power and girl, Cesar is challenged by Clodio (Shia LaBeouf), a Tybalt type with a ponytail and eyeliner, who starts an unlikely ascent. In one mockable moment, Clodio dons a frock and announces, “Revenge tastes best in a dress!”
Cesar also has the perplexing ability to stop time, which comes across as a belated “Matrix” rip-off. Although that could be because Fishburne, as his assistant Fundi, understandably defaults to Morpheus mode.
Cesar does his warping trick by simply saying, “Time stop!” like the laws of physics are a Golden Retriever. Don’t give yourself forehead wrinkles thinking too hard about this. Or anything else.
Coppola put his bookshelf in a blender. Characters quote Petrarch and Marcus Aurelius and, for just one fleeting section, speak only in Latin. A 16-year-old pop star is introduced as “New Rome’s very own vestal virgin.”
One of the director’s more novel gimmicks will generate buzz. The bit is fun while it lasts, but ultimately proves pointless.
From beginning to end, the craft — directing, acting, writing, editing, design — is just not there. The long last third of the movie is about a crashing Soviet satellite and the hostile takeover of Crassus’ bank. And the final 10 minutes, from Voight’s phallus crack to a nauseating closeup on a baby are, frankly, a bad joke.
Coppola said during a pre-screening Q&A that, like “Apocalypse Now,” he hopes the film’s presently tarnished reputation improves over time.
“You get more out of it every time you see it,” said the director who’s given us some of the greatest films ever. “People love it and people hate it — it’s the best reaction.”
But after watching his $120 million Rome-inspired passion project crammed full of Shakespeare references, Coppola’s words had a different ring to them.
Et tu, Brute?