MEGALOPOLIS

By Marc S. Sanders

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is undeniably the director’s most ambitious project of his long career.  Like other films, Coppola put up the entire $120 million to finally make the picture, including selling his well-known vineyard to make it happen.  Every penny he invested is well spent.  Especially seeing it on IMAX, this is an absolutely gorgeous motion picture, like James Cameron’s Avatar films.  I mean…wow do the colors pop and shine.  

However, as beautiful as the visuals are in Coppola’s self-described “Fable” (it literally says that in the title card), it is mostly devoid of substance beyond the paint by numbers debates that cause conflict among these very strange characters.

In New Rome City, an alternative reality to the Big Apple (the Statue of Liberty holds the torch in her left hand), Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is a “designer” who recently invented Megalon, a substance that he believes is the answer to a utopian future.  It’s indestructible and it can be molded to serve practically any purpose.  For example, you don’t even have to walk to where you’re going.  Step on the Megalon puddle and it will move you there.  Not much of a departure from the flat movable floors you find in nationwide airports.  This is one of Megalon’s major innovations, designed to impress me?

Megalon can also be used for healing, and it has the ability of transparency.  It is more durable than wood, steel or concrete.  It’s truly the next greatest wonder of resources.  Frankly, I was more dazzled by the Vibranium found in Wakanda.

As Caesar the artist pushes his agenda for absolute Utopia, the hardened Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is the opposing side of the argument declaring Utopia to be an impossibility.  Caught in between the two figures is Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of Cicero and in love with Caesar.  Gotta have a soap opera element to this piece so the stubborn divide between these two men remains firmly in place.

Just as in typical political rings, the Mayor works to smear Caesar the idealist who is solely focused on his end goal design.

Outside the boundaries of their public quarrel are other overly colorful and garish looking characters such as the banker Hamilton Cressus III (Jon Voight), his wife, the gossip reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Constance Cassius Catalina who is Caesar’s mother (Talia Shire), a lone, crazed revolutionist and nephew to the Mayor called Clodio Pulcher (Shia LeBeouf) and Nush “The Fixer” Berman (Dustin Hoffman).

These names are exhausting.  Coppola’s film is even more tiresome.  The filmmaker truly must believe he is the second comings of both Nostradamus and William Shakespeare.  The ego of this picture could not be more apparent.  The director’s head must be THAT BIG to believe he has the nerve to tell this story of such biblical proportions.

Much of those character names, and the actors who play them, are here for show and tell.  Their value to this piece is nowhere near as prized as anyone living in Harry Potter’s world, though. Megalopolis only takes time to calm itself down when the three principal players have scenes isolated to themselves or when they only occupy the screen together.  Otherwise, this movie serves as vehicles for much of the cast to be adorned with updated and trendy Roman costume wear, from fig leaf crowns to golden armored chest plates.  At times, LeBeouf is so unrecognizable in hair, makeup and clothes you don’t even realize you’re looking at him.  

The performances are all over the place.  I never once believed that whatever Dustin Hoffman was talking about that he knew what he was even saying or representing.  Shia LeBeouf mostly runs with the privilege of getting to say “Fuck Caesar!” while finding motivation only in whatever weird appearance he’s dressed in.  Adam Driver can lead a picture for sure, but here he looks like he showed up for filming with a bewitching overnight hangover.  

This is a film that cannot be ignored for its technical achievements at Oscar time.  For no reason other than aesthetics, Driver and Emmanuel will share a scene while balancing themselves on swinging steel construction beams high above the city. The view is spectacular.  All undeniably eye opening.  You also cannot look away from the costumes or scenic art direction.  The sound mixing in an IMAX theater totally envelops you in this weird world.  It’s a digital film’s dream just like James Cameron banks on.  

Still, maybe none of these efforts will be recognized because frankly much of the visuals, audio and physical construction make zero sense or relevance to the central storyline that Coppola is striving for.  Namely, the possibility for Utopia versus the practicality of simply living through life with the necessity for economics, technology, healthcare, fuel and on and on and on.

Of all films I thought about while watching Megalopolis, my mind went to William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  Shatner had the idea to have the Enterprise crew meet face to face with the almighty God.  Well, if you’re going to deliver God to a movie house, without George Burns or Morgan Freeman in the role, you’re setting yourself up to disappoint at least half or maybe even one hundred percent of your audience.  When you factor in the tremendous assortments of beliefs and religions, I’d argue no two people who believe in God, see the ethereal, omnipotent entity in the same way.  The same goes for Utopia.  How can Francis Ford Coppola be so audacious as to believe audiences will accept Caesar’s vision of a perfect land?  

Reader, he can’t!

My Utopia is different than your Utopia.  This is practically an untouchable subject and Francis Ford Coppola is far from the fabled prophet that the world needs or will draw their attention to.

Still, I remained as open minded as I could with Megalopolis all the way towards the ending that finally arrived.  The Utopia shown on this giant IMAX screen was told by the film’s narrator (Laurence Fishburne, also paying Caesar’s chauffeur) that the world was showered in gold dust.  A far cry from the Bible’s claim of arriving upon a land of milk and honey.  Why should I ever need the nourishment of milk and honey when I can have gold dust?

Think about that for a second.  Gold Dust.  I know.  The narrator is being allegorical.  Still, couldn’t that be interpreted as a little too materialistic for the Utopia we yearn for?  Gold is only a precious metal the same way a diamond is only a precious stone, or the Atari 2600 is now an expired precious commodity among former twelve year old kids in the 1980s.  

I have little shame.  I’m an admitted materialistic kind of guy.  My Mustang and my flat screen TV and my Star Wars collectibles mandate that I am. Yet, none of these possessions have ever delivered me into a paradise of perfection.  The Mustang needs precious fuel to operate.  Try as I might, I can’t collect everything.  My flat screen TV is still on the fritz.  (DAMN YOU BEST BUY GEEK SQUAD!!!)

Coppola contradicts himself with the conclusion of his fantasy opus.  He pans over the extras who occupy this film with big toothy grins of enormous gratitude while the very well dressed and bejeweled surviving characters of his story seem to be shot from an elevated stage above me, the viewer, and all who occupy a brightly lit Times Square located within the heart of New Rome City.  I am meant to look up to these giants!!! 

THIS IS UTOPIA???  

No!  I could never accept this interpretation of grand decadence as the enigmatic paradise we have all envisioned in dreams and discussion and literature.  Shouldn’t Utopia consist of a life where stress is absent, and pain is a foreign unfamiliar word and feeling? I’m not even giving Utopia its fair due.  It’s practically impossible to describe, but I’m at least certain that the rich shades of gold and black glamours within a Times Square shopping district is not the way to go.  Yet, Francis Ford Coppola is suggesting this is all that it is.  A Times Square showered in gold dust.

Frankly, I normally would give much more credit to the man who pioneered the stellar Godfather films along with the bombastic Apocalypse Now and the intimate The Conversation.  He’s never been more short sighted though, than when he finally made his “fable,” Megalopolis.

The greatest flaw and tragedy of Megalopolis is the very broad contradiction that Francis Ford Coppola declares within his fictional, fantasy-like prophecy.  Once the “fable” is all over, I feel like I paid an enormous amount of money for a cult like weekend seminar meant to brainwash me into broadening heights of positivity and awareness, showered in gold dust of course.  

Where’s The High-Level Minister Coppola?  

I’d like my money back because this preach is no more believable than an L Ron Hubbard doctrine.  Battlefield Earth just might be a little more convincing Megalopolis.