Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Studio: American Zoetrope, Caesar Film LLC, Lionsgate
Review by: Robbie Fleming
Francis Ford Coppola is highly regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, bringing out classics such as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now. However, his latest film Megalopolis reaches the heights of those films and ends up being one of the weaker films in his filmography. Yes, I’m saying that even Godfather Part 3 is a better film than this one.
Set in a world that mixes modern America with ancient Rome, Megalopolis follows a visionary architect as he clashes with the corrupt Mayor in determining how to rebuild the metropolis of New Rome as "Megalopolis", a futuristic utopia. I think Coppola had a good premise and overall concept for this film but the execution tragically fell as fast as the Roman empire. The storyline is messy and hard to follow, the screenplay is full of crap dialogue, the characters are underdeveloped and have bizarre names and the pacing feels dragged out.
Normally, Adam Driver impresses me in the roles he chooses but honestly, this is one of his weakest performances. I feel like because of how bad the characters are in this film, the cast doesn’t have much to work with here and ends up giving bland performances. Whilst Giancarlo Espotio and Aubrey Plaza gave strong performances, Nathalie Emmanuel felt too wooden and Shia LaBeouf felt too over the top. The rest of the cast all feel either bland or forgettable.
I do respect Coppola’s artistic choices of how he wanted the film to look but some scenes look fake and you can tell they're either made in a studio or on a Green Screen. I do praise the scenes shot on location, the costumes and the hair/make-up team as they were the highlight of the film. To me, this looked more like a student film compared to a film made by a master of cinema.
I get it, Coppola hasn’t made a film since 2011 so he probably struggled to get back into it but from someone who I highly rate for his directing and writing style, it just felt like he was going backwards rather than forwards.
I didn’t hate Megalopolis compared to most people I’ve spoken to about it but I can’t necessarily say that I enjoyed it for the flaws I've mentioned. For me, Megalopolis only receives a 5/10 and a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
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