MEGALOPOLIS *
Francis Ford Coppola2024
IDEA: In New Rome in the third millennium, a hubristic architect with dreams of building a futuristic utopia clashes with the city's more pragmatic mayor.
BLURB: Among the many, many baffling things about Megalopolis is how an almost literally go-for-broke auteurist passion project could end up feeling so hopelessly devoid of passion. One would expect a film by a living legend of American cinema to exhibit at the very least some verve, or formal splendor, or rich ideas, or, heck, the most basic level of storytelling and technical competence. But by some hellishly inexplicable math, Megalopolis doesn’t have any of that. It’s surreal in the context of a relatively big-budget epic to witness such flat, drab images, all cheap-looking chromakey and haphazard blocking. For a milieu that’s supposed to combine crumbling ancient Roman decadence with the sleek modernity of New York City, the film’s New Rome is barely palpable as anything more than a soundstage and some impromptu shots of Manhattan streets. At any given moment, there seems to be about six people in this city, all connected in a warmed-over soap opera of intrafamily political and sexual rivalries. The actors portraying these people trudge through the film with seemingly no direction, stiltedly delivering their lines like understudies who just learned the script a few minutes prior to shooting. Coppola’s musings about civilization, democracy, leadership, urban planning, and the future of the US are certainly welcome, but instead of finding purchase in compelling drama or heady discourse, they’re reduced to trite aphorisms Laurence Fishburne is forced to ponderously recite over, I’m going to say, PowerPoint templates modeled on stone tablets. The whole thing sits there like a lead balloon, lifeless, charmless, almost artless if not for Milena Canonero’s quirky costumes and some neat editing effects. It would be one thing if Megalopolis inspired awe through sheer audacity, or excitement through mad style, but it really just elicits a regretful sigh that so much could have gone so terribly wrong.
