MEGALOPOLIS is a Roman Epic set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.

Review

Francis Ford Coppola is a legendary director. This isn’t in dispute. Megalopolis has been a project decades in the making, according to Coppola. One caught up in ironically some AI marketing gone wrong. When one of the first trailers for the film dropped, it included fake critics’ reviews of his past films naming specific critics and sites. When they were called out on it, it was quickly taken down. Coppola also ultimately funded this film himself, using a wine business as his collateral for the loan to make this film. He desperately wanted to make this film happen but at what cost?

Narratively the film seems unsure of what it wants to be or where it wants to go right from the start. If I had to put a finer point on it I would say its Cloud Atlas meets Romeo & Juliet. The film wants to be a human condition story through the ages, presenting a star-crossed lover story but neither is compelling enough to stand out. The narrative is so disorganized, that you are 30 minutes behind figuring out what’s going on versus where you are at in the film. Half the time it feels like even the actors are unsure of what story they are trying to tell.

The all-star cast is impressive: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, and Dustin Hoffman. Coppola during a live Q&A before our screening mentioned that he looked for a diverse cast from a political and belief standpoint as it was very clear from the characters and the story, that he was attempting to parallel real and current belief systems and people. Including those in our current political landscape.

Visually the film is artistically stunning and thought-provoking. Had the execution of the story been just 10% better, perhaps we could have enjoyed the visuals more but our minds were just trying to process what we just watched and make sense of it to enjoy the visual aspects.

After all these years of waiting to make this film, I am left disappointed there wasn’t more. The movie narratively felt disorganized, a pile of ideas that didn’t string together the Cloud Atlas meets Romeo & Juliet that I thought it was going for. Visually it’s stunning and everyone will grab something unique from it, but the execution was lacking.

Courtesy of Lionsgate