Megalopolis (2024) | Film Review

Self-funded passion projects can ignite a film lover’s imagination or showcase exactly why no studio decided to pony up a budget. Francis Ford Coppola – who put up $120 million of his own money – directs his fiery dream with Megalopolis, and what a vision it is. Equal parts the Wachowskis and Shakespeare, for whatever you ultimately think of the film, it is maniacally ambitious. Unfortunately, it is also the latter of those two earlier scenarios.

In this Roman themed fable, Adam Driver stars as Cesar, a brilliant artist residing in the massive city of New Rome with a vision for a refined utopia. Yes, he’s a genius, potential murderer of his late wife, and avid drug abuser: a complicated figure. Cesar is also constantly clashing with society, Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), his old mistress and newfound gold-digger (a venomously vampy Aubrey Plaza), his manipulative cousin Clodio who holds an overwhelming desire to usurp Cesar’s power over the community (an unhinged Shia LaBeouf), and the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) who becomes infatuated with Cesar. Oh, and Cesar’s story and the film are narrated by his driver, Laurence Fishburne.

An absolutely stacked cast all came to play in this mega-weird, ultra-bonkers world with obvious nods to director Terry Gilliam’s work. There are shades of Brazil and 1927’s Metropolis everywhere, as well as touches of Sin City and Cohen Brothers sensibilities. Megalopolis is a gathering of ideas and concepts swirling amidst glorious cinematic visions of a potential future. There is so much invested in this film from top to bottom, so why does it feel so vast and empty?

Cinematography, shot compositions, performances: there is so much here to help elevate Megalopolis into something fantastically whimsical. Instead, everyone involved is trapped in a disjointed script more focused on pontificating via sermons pointing fingers directly at the human condition or directly quoting Hamlet rather than exploring a coherent story and pacing the film with any semblance of hubris. Overpromised and underdelivered is the takeaway here.

The film even completely forgets that Julia is a main character for the film’s final half hour. Nathalie Emmanuel is the beating heart of a rather soulless endeavor, and she fuels Adam Driver’s Cesar (a rather bland character otherwise) as this tale unfolds, and then she is relegated to little more than window dressing for the film’s final act. It’s an odd choice. The only clear highlights are Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza cherishing the opportunity to ramp up their own insanity and perking up every frame they appear in by embracing the chaos and clearly relishing an opportunity to go for broke.

This is an obvious vanity project for Coppola, as he has been attempting to complete this film for decades. There are flickers on screen of visionary concepts that reveal the promise this endeavor held years before it became this albatross of a misstep. Worse still, the film commits the worst cinematic crime; for all of the grandeur and wildly diverting performances, it is incessantly boring. Francis Ford Coppola has a filmography worthy of praise, but the history books would be better off omitting any future trips to Megalopolis.