Megalopolis: A Fable (2024)
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Premise: Set in the near future, the architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) pushes the city of New Rome to make fundamental changes. He runs up against the political and economic forces that control the city.
What Works: Megalopolis impresses in all of its technical facets. This film is set in an American city based on ancient Rome and the production design marries Roman architecture with futuristic elements. Many shots are beautiful and the film includes some surreal images especially in the decadent party sequences.
What Doesn’t: There has been a lot of press about Megalopolis with much of that coverage emphasizing the scope and ambition of the film which is said to be a long-in-development passion project for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. But what Megalopolis proves is that neither ambition nor passion are enough. This film is a disaster. It’s subtitled A Fable and that subtitle is indicative of the film’s core problems. For one, much like the subtitle, the filmmakers bluntly and unartfully spell out their intentions with intertitles and narration. But fables are fantastic stories that impart a message. Megalopolis has nothing to say. Many films are accused of being pretentious but Megalopolis is a textbook case. The filmmakers carry on as though they are making a grand statement about society but there is nothing here, at least nothing formed, insightful, or coherent. What Megalopolis does suggest is superficial and indirectly authoritarian. The story is rooted in the great man theory and Cesar Catilina is a proxy for Silicon Valley billionaires; in Ayn Randian fashion, Megalopolis supposes that society will be guided to a utopia by brilliant, well-meaning visionaries. It’s a silly and immature idea that’s divorced from the film’s supposed historical reference point. If Megalopolis is intended as a warning of the United States repeating the Roman Empire’s collapse, the filmmakers fail to make that point. The story ends optimistically but it does not earn that optimism in part because the story has no shape. The film is just a jumble of scenes that don’t lead logically from one to the next. There is no sense of rising action and nothing is won or lost. The characters are not interesting. Many of them have no goal or desire. The emotional core of Megalopolis is supposed to be the family story. Cesar Catilina falls in love with the mayor’s daughter (Nathalie Emmanuel) but their romance is neither convincing nor involving. There is no passion or tragedy. The story includes some palace intrigue among the ruling class but none of it is compelling or even discernable. The performances are consistently terrible and no one seems like they are in the same movie.
Bottom Line: Megalopolis is a disaster. The movie is interesting to look at but not interesting to ponder. The sociopolitical content is facile and its storytelling is inane. Megalopolis is an over long, over produced bore. The intention may have been 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire but the result is closer to 1980’s Caligula.
Episode: #1016 (October 6, 2024)